Fresh stock market raid sparks clarion call for action
The London Stock Exchange risks being gutted of even more blue-chip firms this year without urgent action from ministers and officials, a group of top advisers has said, after three more listed companies accepted bids from foreign buyers.
The cohort warned that “complacency is not a viable option” following news that FTSE 250 firms Bodycote and Gamma Communications, as well as energy company Capricorn, would became the latest firms to quit London’s bourse this year.
The trio of deals has a combined takeover value of more than £3bn, extending a record raid on Britain’s stock market that has seen Schroders, Easyjet and insurance giant Beazley all plucked off the bourse by foreign bidders in a matter of months. This year alone, companies worth a combined £132bn have been subject to unsolicited bids, nearly triple the figure for the same period in 2025.
“Any hope that the steady leak of FTSE companies to overseas buyers has stopped will have been dashed by [yesterday] morning’s trio of announcements,” said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG. “The news is another blow to the efforts of the London Stock Exchange, Canada and the government to maintain the importance of London’s financial markets.”
Macclesfield-based Bodycote, the largest of the pack and a member of the London Stock Exchange since 1972, said it had reached an agreement to be acquired by US private equity firm Veritas Capital in a deal that valued the company at £1.9bn. The offer of 932p per share represents a premium of 41.4 per cent, comes after the metallurgy business rebuffed earlier approaches from Veritas and CVC.
Telecoms giant Gamma recommended a £1.1bn offer from UK private equity shop Epiris, just days after confirming it was in talks with European buyout firm Waterland over a possible takeover. And Capricorn Energy, an Edinburgh-headquartered oil and gas firm, ended its 38-year stint on the London Stock Exchange, when it switched a recommended offer from Genel Energy to Norwegian petrochemicals giant DNO.
City figures urge stock market action
The flood of departures has led leading Square Mile figures to issue a clarion call for politicians to unveil a raft of fresh policies that will boost Britain’s moribund public market. Steven Fine, chief executive of Peel Hunt, said it was a “a shame – almost a tragedy” that more of Britain’s pension capital was not ring-fenced for their domestic market.
Mark Kelly, chief executive of MKI Global Partners, warned there was “likely to be a lot more big public M&A coming in the UK before the end of the year” but added there were no easy policy fixes to the issue.
Despite persistent interest from foreign buyers, valuations among smaller listed companies have stayed stubbornly low for years. The FTSE 250 firms are currently valued at roughly half those in New York’s blue-chip index, the S&P 500.
“We urgently need to reverse the consistent and sizeable outflows of capital to ensure that we retain a healthy market for existing listed companies and ensure a vibrant market for new listings,” Charles Hall, head of research at Peel Hunt told Morning Wire. “There is increasing competition for companies, capital and talent and we need to play to win. Complacency is not a viable option.”
The Treasury did not respond to a request for comment.