LONDON, 19 July 2024 – Aon plc (NYSE: AON), a leading global professional services firm, has said that new changes to the UK’s listing regime could help boost economic growth and innovation on the UK stock market. The biggest changes to the UK listing regime in decades were unveiled by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) last week, aiming to support a wider range of companies to issue their shares on a UK exchange and increase opportunities for investors.
Overhauling the listing regime is part of a package of capital market reforms to ensure the UK is the place where companies can start, grow, scale and stay, and to help investors access assets that provide returns and support the real economy in which they live and work.
Aon’s focus on the stock market reform agenda stems from its multi-disciplinary roles at different points in the public and private markets ecosystem.
On the investor side, Aon is a workplace pension provider with £6.8 billion of funds under management, as well as an investment adviser to pension funds and other clients. Aon is also a signatory to the UK’s Mansion House Compact, an initiative to allocate a minimum of 5 percent of defined contribution (DC) default funds to unlisted equities by 2030 with the aim of unlocking over £50 billion of new capital. The Compact also aims to secure better returns for savers and ensure fast-growing businesses like fintech and biotech can stay and grow in the UK.
On the company side, Aon acts for private and publicly listed businesses in roles ranging from remuneration consultant and cyber security adviser, to insurance intermediary (including intellectual property). In these and other roles, it helps clients unlock alternative forms of capital to support their growth and scale-up efforts. This is by using insurance solutions focused on their IP, and guiding them on risk, human capital and cyber security as they prepare to launch an initial public offering (IPO) and manage the transition from private to public ownership. Aon UK joined the London Stock Exchange’s Marketplace, the forum for service providers to UK-listed issuers, earlier this year.
Joanna Sharples, senior partner at Aon Investments and Chief Investment Officer of Aon DC Solutions, said:
“These new changes from the FCA represent a key step in the UK’s broader stock market reform agenda and help create a more level playing field for investors in UK listed companies, complementing efforts elsewhere to unlock capital in the pension system and improve returns for members.”
Opening an IPO breakfast event hosted by Aon in London the day before the FCA’s new listing rules were announced, Alistair Lester, co-CEO for Aon M&A and Transaction Solutions, said:
“We see the overall package of UK capital market reforms and the inter-relationship between public and private markets, as important for creating a vibrant UK capital market. By nurturing UK growth businesses and enabling them to scale-up in the UK, they may, in time, progress to become UK listed companies and contribute to UK growth.”
At the same IPO breakfast event, Marcus Stuttard, head of AIM & UK Primary Markets at The London Stock Exchange, highlighted the liquidity in London’s equity market, illustrated by transactions of all sizes in the year-to-date, and noted that the proposed crossover initiative between private and public markets would create the world’s first “cohesive funding continuum”.
Also speaking at the event, Mark Austin, partner at Latham & Watkins and member of the UK’s Capital Markets Industry Taskforce, said:
“Developing a broader equity culture in the UK is key to encouraging democratisation of wealth - and better communication with the UK public about the contribution that private investment makes to the UK economy plays an important part in that. More broadly, a strong and positive narrative is needed to help articulate the wide range of capital market reforms being adopted or already underway.”
About Aon
Aon plc (NYSE: AON) exists to shape decisions for the better — to protect and enrich the lives of people around the world. Through actionable analytic insight, globally integrated Risk Capital and Human Capital expertise, and locally relevant solutions, our colleagues provide clients in over 120 countries and sovereignties with the clarity and confidence to make better risk and people decisions that help protect and grow their businesses.
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