London’s biggest listings in 2025 have all tumbled since the start of the year, dealing a blow to hopes of a revival in the capital’s lacklustre IPO market. The five biggest floats from last year slumped by an average of 26 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, according
Simon Hunt
Tuesday 07 April 2026 3:15 am | Updated: Monday 06 April 2026 3:21 pm
London’s biggest listings in 2025 have all tumbled since the start of the year, dealing a blow to hopes of a revival in the capital’s lacklustre IPO market.
The five biggest floats from last year slumped by an average of 26 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, according to a City AM analysis, leaving them all trading well below their IPO price. By comparison, London’s mid-cap FTSE 250 index was down by only 5.4 per cent over the same period, while the blue-chip FTSE 100 was up by more than two per cent.
Dual-listed data centre energy firm Fermi has been the worst-performing of the recent IPOs, with its stock down by two-fifths since the start of the year, followed by British bank Shawbrook, which is down by around a third.
Tinned tuna giant Princes Group is down 16 per cent since January, while Beauty Tech group fell 15 per cent and Metlen dropped 27 per cent. The only major firm to be trading above its IPO price was £360m accountancy firm MHA, which has seen its stock jump by around a quarter since its April AIM float.
The poor performance of the London Stock Exchange’s newest constituents, many of whom joined the market in a hopeful fourth-quarter flurry of floats, pours cold water on the prospects of further listings in the year ahead, amid a global IPO market that has been subdued by uncertainty following the outbreak of war in Iran at the end of February.
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Writing in his set-piece letter to shareholders yesterday, JP Morgan chief Jamie Dimon said he found it “a little surprising” that private equity firms had not “taken greater advantage of healthy markets to take their companies public.”
The banking chief warned: “We have generally had nothing but a bull market since the great financial crisis — it’s hard to imagine what will happen if and when we have an extended bear market.”
But in an interview with City AM last month, Brian Hanratty, head of capital markets at City broker Peel Hunt, insisted that there remained a high chance of a second-half revival in London’s IPO market, adding that “the pipeline is the best we have seen in a number of years.”
“Ultimately we would like to see markets stabilise,” Hanratty said.
“The market’s hoping for a short term resolution for the conflict. And the big question this all raises is is there a higher risk of a stagflation rate backdrop that impacts how companies see their forecasts.”
Read more RAC could jump-start London’s IPO engine with bumper £5bn float
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