Stop talking Britain down: Aviva chief Amanda Blanc issues rallying cry
Stop talking about Britain: Amanda Blanc, head of Aviva, shouts a rallying cry as yet another British company looks at the New York listing
One of the most powerful women in British finance has told the country to stop “talking itself down” after yet another company said it was monitoring a New York stock exchange listing.
Amanda Blanc, CEO of Aviva, called on Britain to support itself, adding that the UK should start cutting back on unnecessary regulation.
Her rallying cry stems from growing concerns about UK capital markets after chipmaker Arm and building materials giant CRH opted for listings in New York last week.
Time for action: Amanda Blanc, Aviva’s chief exec, called on Britain to back itself up, adding that the UK should ‘start’ pushing back unnecessary regulation
The city was dealt another blow when fintech star OakNorth warned it would float its shares in New York rather than London.
Problems for these companies include a lack of access capital and the inability of investors to understand high-growth technology companies.
But Blanc refused to join in the hysteria, saying: ‘We want the UK to be successful and I think we need to stop talking ourselves down.
“We have a lot of the components in the UK, and we just need to go our separate ways and actually start delivering some of the things that we said we would.”
OakNorth is a particular disappointment as it is a British engineering success and could potentially go public as early as this year.
Chief executive Rishi Khosla took aim at Britain’s capital structure, saying it lacked a domestic investor base focused on high-growth technology.
The comments mark a significant shift from previous interviews, in which Khosla had indicated that London was his first choice.
There was further concern when BSF Enterprise also joined the list, saying yesterday it had also applied to trade its shares in the US in addition to its primary listing on the main London market.
Despite being valued at only £13 million, BSF caused a stir last month when it produced the UK’s first ever lab-grown fillet of pork. Top financiers lamented the exodus and called for a review of UK capital markets.
Richard Buxton, fund manager at Jupiter, said a two-decade-old rule requiring companies to hold pension deficits on their balance sheets should be scrapped.
He added that it was responsible for draining “billions of pounds” from British stocks. Ahead of next week’s budget, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is under pressure to make changes that could make it easier for institutional investors to support British companies.
Research by the Office for National Statistics showed that in 2000, 39 percent of all shares listed on the London Stock Exchange were owned by UK pension funds and insurers.
But by 2020, that number had dropped to 4 percent. Buxton told the Financial Times: ‘The UK, with its world-class universities, has enormous opportunities. But we don’t seem to be able to fund or keep these businesses growing in this country.”
M&G chief executive Andrea Rossi warned that the UK was still suffering from Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget in September, when unforeseen tax cuts sent bond markets into a spiral.
He said: “Britain has a lot of intellectual property, but the question is when to move to the next stage, companies look to US capital.”
He added that the “UK is able to thrive but it was impacted by the events of autumn 2022”.
Blanc was more optimistic, saying Britain was on the right track, adding that all the country needed was a ‘little bit of confidence’.
Aviva’s shares rose 2.7 percent yesterday after full-year operating profit of £2.2 billion came in higher than expected.