Will Airtel Money kickstart London’s IPO pipeline?
London’s sluggish IPO market showed signs of a rebound on Wednesday as Airtel Money confirmed plans for a bumper listing – now the City is hoping it will get the domestic pipeline moving, writes Charlie Conchie.
When Airtel Money’s chief executive spoke to City AM yesterday to discuss the launch of his African payment firm’s IPO, he was adamant the company had options. Airtel Money “evaluated a lot of exchanges” including the US, Europe and North America, Ian Ferrao said, but it was London that had come up trumps.
They are the type of comments some in the City have been waiting long to hear from a fintech that could fetch a valuation of around $8bn should it get away successfully in a few weeks’ time. Set to raise at least $800m, it would be London’s biggest float in five years and comes with a healthy precedent – its parent company, FTSE 100 Airtel Africa, is trading up around 350 per cent since its 2019 listing, ranking among the most best performing London IPOs of the last decade.
Headquartered in Dubai, sources say Middle Eastern exchanges had been explored most seriously by the company before it landed on the City – a decision its chief executive chalked up to London’s “deep pools of capital” but which will be due in no small part to the conflict roiling regional markets.
After the float of the Uzbek national investment fund, UzNIF, which raised $600m in London’s only sizeable IPO so far this year, the deal could prove another useful proof point to foreign firms debating where to list, several advisers told City AM.
“We’re seeing more international and emerging market companies list in the UK which is another datapoint to show that the listing debate is shifting back in the London Stock Exchange’s favour,” said Brian Hanratty, head of equity capital markets at investment bank Peel Hunt.
Also on the docket is the European arm of TCC, formerly Taiwan Cement, which bankers are hurriedly looking to get in a position to list before the year is out, according to City sources. A spokesperson said it does not comment on speculation but the firm is evaluating the feasibility of an IPO and London is among the venues in contention.
Domestic IPO pipeline
But the absence of homegrown and developed market champions is still proving a headache for some.
A crop of household names had pencilled in listings for 2026 including Waterstones, RAC and tech giant Visma. Waterstones has shelved its plans until next year, City AM understands, while RAC’s owners have pulled a sharp U-turn and opted instead to sell into a continuation vehicle, sources said. Owners of both firms declined to comment on their plans.
Visma had been the market’s great hope at the beginning of this year but fell foul of the ‘SaaSpocalypse’, where advances in AI wiped billions from the value of software stocks. Several people spoken to by City AM say that chatter of the deal’s revival had run quiet. Hg, Visma’s owner, was contacted for comment.
Scott McCubbin, EY-Parthenon’s UK IPO chief, warned against the temptation to view Airtel Money as a sign that London had turned a corner. A single float, no matter how large, is not a reliable indicator of the market as a whole, he told City AM.
“Whether [this] translates into sustained listing momentum, rather than isolated big-ticket floats, will be the real test over the next quarter and into early-2027, particularly with the current uncertain geopolitical environment and impact of the upcoming budget remaining important external factors,” he said.
Those external factors are already weighing on London’s other great hope for the Autumn: Oaktree-owned wealth manager Utmost.
The listing of a sponsor-backed asset in the financial services sector would be seen as an important signal of whether the market is firing. But a busy few months politically is giving the company pause, City AM understands. Several months ago, advisers had pencilled in a potential launch date before realising it coincided with Labour’s conference, sources said, where talk of wealth taxes might not be conducive to buoyant investor sentiment.
Oaktree is now weighing whether to launch the deal in the coming weeks or kick it into the new year to avoid a period dominated by tax chatter, the UK Budget and the US mid-terms, the people said. It is yet to make any firm decision on the timing of the deal, they added. Oaktree declined to comment.
The London’s pipeline is seen by advisers as the strongest it has been in years, and Airtel Money is being closely watched as an important step in the right direction. Now, advisers say, it is just about timing.
“We’re heading into a busy autumn politically and economically,” said Michael Jacobs, capital markets partner at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, “so it’s really about deciding when the conditions are right.”