London not ‘attractive’ for firms to list their shares, says US Hotel boss
London is ‘not very attractive’ for companies to list their shares, says InterContinental Hotel boss Keith Barr
The boss of the hotel giant behind the Holiday Inn has claimed that London is “not a very attractive place” for companies to list shares.
Keith Barr, CEO of the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), said the UK stock market “has been out of focus for a while” and urged action to prevent an exodus.
The comments came as SoftBank, the Japanese owner of Cambridge chip designer Arm, was set to list in New York rather than London, a major setback for the city.
Warning: InterContinental boss Keith Barr (pictured) said the UK stock market ‘has been out of focus for some time’ and urged authorities to take action to prevent an exodus of companies
Other big names have plans to scrap existing listings in London or enter into secondary listings in New York.
IHG, owner of the Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn brands, is worth more than £9 billion and is a member of the FTSE 100. But it also has a secondary listing in New York.
When IHG went public, Barr told the Financial Times there was “probably no reason to even think about listing in the US for our primary listing because the FTSE was the FTSE and was incredibly liquid.”
But “things have changed” and he urged the Square Mile to “get back on track” by luring investment from pension and insurance funds and saying government regulations need to be relaxed to compete with the US.
CRH, the world’s largest building materials company, valued at nearly £30 billion, said last month it would leave the London market and go public again in New York.
Betting giant Flutter is among those eyeing a secondary listing in New York.