This year has been a crunch year for the London market. Nearly four years after Lord Hill’s review of UK listing rules kicked off reform efforts, the stock market remains in trouble.

New London-listed companies raised the least amount of money on record in 2024, at just £737 million according to Dealogic data, highlighting the challenges of revitalizing the market. Fewer than 20 companies listed on the UK capital last year, the lowest number of additions to its stock market since the financial crisis in 2009.

While many companies have chosen to add or relocate to US listings in search of greater liquidity and higher valuations, UK policymakers are urgently trying to revive London with reforms to regulations and move to encourage pension funds to invest in UK stocks.

Amid poor markets and political uncertainty, the expected listings of fintech companies were delayed last year. Others, including eBay-backed payments company Zilch, are on the way initial public offering but not until 2026. Some, like the trading app eToro and buy-now-pay-later group Klarnaplans to go public in the US.

Those leading efforts to revive the UK market, led by London Stock Exchange chief executive Julia Hoggett, maintain that the IPO market will take off this year. But now, advisers say, hope is fading that 2025 will prove a boom year.

The Financial Times has compiled the companies that may list in London this year.

Fintech

Ebury

Payments startup owned by Spanish bank Santander has appointed investment banks including Goldman Sachs to lead work on a London IPO that could value the group at around £2bn.

Ebury was founded in 2009 by Spanish engineers Juan Lobato and Salvador García. It offers services including cross-border payments, payroll transfers, currency risk management and business lending.

The flotation will be closely watched by the rest of the UK fintech sector following the disastrous performance of rival CAB Payments, whose shares have fallen more than 70 per cent just three months after its 2023 listing.

the soup

Digital lender backed by SoftBank the soup expect to find a list afterwards achieving profit last year. The company was founded in 2005 as a peer-to-peer lender but has since pivoted into banking and offers savings accounts, car finance and personal loans. It was last estimated to be more than $1bn in a fundraiser by December 2024.

Chief executive Jaidev Janardana has previously expressed a preference for London as a listing venue. However, a person close to the company cautioned that executives are not setting a timeline for an IPO. Zopa may be ready to float soon, they said, but will wait for the right market conditions.

ClearScore

ClearScore, the credit assessment platform founded in 2015 by Justin Basini, is one of the few fintechs to express its commitment to London as a listing destination, with a flotation option “under consideration”.

“If we go down this route, we see London as our natural home given our household brand status, strong profitability and user scale in this market,” the company told the Financial Times. The company was last valued at $700mn in the 2021 funding round and is backed by venture capital firm QED Investors.

ClearScore welcomes regulatory reforms to boost investment in the UK and says it “(believes) that the future of thriving publicly listed profitable fintechs in London is an exciting prospect”. A potential listing could come in 2026, however.

Financial services

Parameters

British interdealer broker TP ICAP is considering listing its data unit, Parameta, which sells market data to institutional investors and could be worth as much as £1.5bn. This comes after TP ICAP faced pressure from investors in spin off the fast growing unit.

However, the group’s chief executive last year said he was weighing various options for Parameta, including going public in New York instead of London. This “could include a US listing”, he said, adding “there is, of course, no certainty about a public offering or its location”.

Shawbrook

UK private equity owners are small business lenders Shawbrook is considering listing the company in London, targeting a £2bn valuation. BC Partners and Pollen Street Capital bought the bank in 2017 and are considering listing it in the first half of 2025. The company in 2022 shelved plans for a sale after record-high inflation and soaring energy costs hit the lender’s customers.

Industrial

Metlen Energy & Metals

In mid-December, Greece-based Metlen Energy & Metals filed paperwork to add a primary listing on the LSE. Currently trading on the Athens market, Metlen’s chairman said the conglomerate “has had a presence in the UK and international markets for many years” and a London listing “would be in the best interests of Metlen and its shareholders this”.

AirBaltic

Latvian flag carrier AirBaltic says London is a serious contender if it goes ahead with a much-delayed IPO this year.

The airline had planned to list on its home market in Riga but its chief executive met the boss of the LSE last month to discuss the possibility of a dual listing in London. Despite this, Martin Gauss, CEO of AirBaltic, said that other European bourses including Amsterdam and Frankfurt are also options, if the airline continues a flotation.

consumers

Shein

Online fast-fashion group Shein could go ahead with a blockbuster listing in London this year, potentially valuing the company at around £50bn. The company, founded in China and headquartered in Singapore, filed confidential papers last year for a proposed IPO and is still waiting regulatory nodes in the UK and China.

In October, this reclusive billionaire founder Sky Xu met with UK and US investors in anticipation of a flotation. If Shein gets the green light for an IPO, it will likely be in the first half of this year, a person with knowledge of the meetings said at the time. It initially targeted New York but moved to London after being rebuffed by US regulators. The company may also target a dual listing in Hong Kong.

Unilever ice cream

Unilever plans to list its €15bn ice cream division but has not confirmed where an IPO will take place.

“We are talking to governments, to authorities, but also to stock exchanges, banks, etc.,” chief executive Hein Schumacher told the FT, adding that the door remains open to potential buyer. The company will confirm its plans in the first half of this year.

The listing could reignite an old rivalry between Unilever’s London and Amsterdam. The maker of Magnum and Marmite previously had listings in both cities but scrapped its dual corporate structure in 2020, moving to a London listing.

Additional reporting by Laura Onita, Madeleine Speed ​​and Philip Georgiadis in London