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The exodus of listings to the US is a “London problem” that does not exist in the rest of Europe, the continent’s biggest stock exchange operator Euronext has said.
Stéphane Boujnah, chief executive of Euronext, said on Wednesday that Europe was strongly positioned to retain and attract listings on its main markets, even though companies such as TotalEnergies were exploring a US listing.
His comments come after London has suffered the loss of stocks such as Flutter and CRH to the US, with Ashtead in December becoming the latest to announce plans to transfer its primary listing to New York.
“Today, the London problem doesn’t exist on the continent. It’s not true that there is an exodus of European companies, there is an exodus of British companies,” he told journalists in Paris.
Fewer than 20 companies listed in the UK capital last year, the lowest number of additions to its stock market since the financial crisis in 2009. Boujnah said the liquidity pooled across Euronext’s seven stock exchanges in Europe was far greater than that of London.
He said companies would continue to prefer continental Europe to the UK because “people go where the market is liquid . . . there is twice as much liquidity in Euronext than in London. We have €9bn-€12bn in volume of shares, around double that exchanged in London.”
In continental Europe, oil major Total and asset manager Tikehau are among French businesses to have said they are exploring listings in New York, citing the more favourable investment environment towards oil majors in the US and the greater investor understanding of asset managers.
But Boujnah said Total’s move was linked to the greater receptiveness towards oil and gas industries among US investors, a point made by chief executive Patrick Pouyanné when he first said the company could move its primary listing from Paris to New York last year.
While delistings and take-private deals have happened in continental Europe as well, Boujnah said, “there is not the same scale as in the UK . . . That could exist in the future, but for the moment we don’t have enough concrete analysis.”
European businesses also face weak growth forecasts and political uncertainty, which have weighed on deal activity and listings in Europe.
Across Europe and the UK, there has been increased activity by private equity groups capitalising on weak valuations of European companies. Private equity deals in Europe rose 78 per cent in 2024 to $133bn, as funds capitalised on the distressed valuations of large companies, the Financial Times reported this week.
But Boujnah said he was “not at all worried by private equity” funds, saying the activity could be a “tailwind” for listings as private equity groups seek to exit their stakes in European companies.
Listings accounted for 14 per cent of Euronext’s income in the third quarter of 2024, the most recent quarter for which data is available.
Boujnah, a former Santander and Deutsche Bank dealmaker, has transformed the size of Euronext in his near 10-year tenure, purchasing the main exchanges of Ireland, Norway and Italy.
He added that he would be “very interested” in making further acquisitions, including the BME exchange in Spain owned by Swiss operator SIX, as well as Nasdaq’s Nordic operations, but said that Euronext was not in active negotiations.
