London’s stock market has a simple problem: companies are leaving faster than replacements arrive. The gap is no longer a mood. The value of bids for London Stock Exchange companies is about 27 times the value of new entrants this year.

The bid list is bigger than the IPO list

UK M&A reached $324bn through late June. Nearly $200bn came from overseas buyers of domestic assets. Foreign capital is not new in Britain, but the scale matters when the exit door is busy and the entry door is narrow.

Only seven companies listed in London in the first six months, raising GBP 577.2mn, based on EY figures. The total market value of new listings was about GBP 2.2bn, and much of that came from a stake in Uzbekistan’s national investment fund. That is not the raw material of a deep new equity cycle.

London has tried the obvious reforms. Rules around free floats and disclosure have been relaxed, and the UK now markets itself as an easier listing venue than much of Europe. Lower friction helps at the margin. It does not force founders, boards, and private owners to choose a weaker valuation pool.

Wall Street still has the liquidity premium

The comparison with the US is brutal because it is numerical. The US produced 72 listings in the first half of 2026, raising $128bn. SpaceX alone accounted for an $86bn float, which is larger than entire national equity pipelines in quieter markets.

That does not mean every growth company belongs in New York. It means the largest floats still see depth, analyst coverage, fund flows, and brand value there. Liquidity is boring until a board is trying to set an IPO price. Then it becomes the main character, unfortunately.

Potential London candidates have not disappeared. Visma had been linked with a EUR 19bn float, while Loveholidays was also in the possible pipeline. Delays blamed on software weakness and war risk show the problem: London needs pristine windows, while New York can absorb more imperfection.

Private capital is not waiting

While London debates listing rules, private capital is still raising money. North American direct lending funds aimed at pension plans and endowments raised at least $16bn in the second quarter. The three months to June 25 ranked as the second strongest quarter in four years for that fund type.

That is awkward timing for the retail version of private credit. Funds sold to wealthy individuals have faced outflows, defaults, writedowns, and software exposure worries tied to AI. Apollo and Morgan Stanley have been among the managers limiting withdrawals in parts of the market.

Institutions appear to be reading the same data differently. If retail money leaves, less capital chases the same loans. The remaining lenders can ask for tighter terms. This is the old credit cycle in a new wrapper: when tourists leave, landlords raise the rent on the serious tenants.

Infrastructure money finds marinas

The same private capital logic is turning up in stranger places. InfraVia agreed a deal worth more than EUR 1bn to buy Athens based D Marin from CVC. Stonepeak agreed to acquire Southern Marinas in April. Blackstone struck a $5.6bn deal last year for Safe Harbor Marinas.

Marinas sound like a punchline until the cash flow is mapped. Berths produce recurring annual fees. New supply is limited by planning rules, coastlines, and local politics. Wealth concentration supplies the demand. In other words, the asset has the profile infrastructure funds like: scarce, sticky, and a bit absurd.

That matters for public markets because these assets rarely need the public market to scale. Private owners can buy, merge, finance, and hold them inside funds. The public investor may only see the result years later, if at all, after the easy consolidation return has already been harvested.

The policy answer is not only lighter rules

London’s rule changes are not pointless. Listing costs, prospectus complexity, and governance constraints can push companies away. But the stronger problem is demand. Pension money, passive flows, analyst attention, and founder status all point toward the venue that offers the highest valuation with the least execution risk.

The more controversial idea is to push domestic savings closer to domestic equities. That may help if it produces patient capital rather than political window dressing. But forced home bias can become an expensive patriotic hobby if the assets are poor. Capital is stubborn. It likes returns more than flags.

UK officials also have to choose the target. Saving the number of listings is not the same as saving the quality of the market. Seven weak floats would not solve the problem. A smaller set of serious technology, finance, and consumer companies would do more for confidence than a parade of statistical filler.

What this means

The useful signal is the gap between action and explanation. Buyers are acting in London. New issuers are hesitating. Private funds are still raising capital. The market is voting with fee cheques and balance sheets, not speeches.

Investors should watch three numbers: London IPO proceeds, overseas acquisition value, and institutional private credit fundraising. If the first stays small while the other two grow, the City is not dead. It is simply becoming a place where assets are bought more often than they are born.