Someone has to want to buy the shares. Then someone has to want to keep them.

Alex Dee’s recent piece, “London doesn’t have a New York problem. It has an IPO problem,” is one of the more honest things written about UK capital markets this year.

His closing line should be graffiteed across the wall of every boardroom that is considering a flotation.. “An IPO market cannot exist solely for the benefit of those selling shares. Someone has to want to buy them.”

I agree with Alex , and I think we can push this further.

In the UK we’ve become very good at describing our capital market problems and much less good at suggesting simple fixes.

Retail is being invited in on the way out

Look at Airtel Money, which Alex rightly highlights. UK retail investors could apply for shares at IPO through their ISAs and SIPPs. That’s progress and we all want more of it.

But the company raised no new capital. Every share sold belonged to an existing shareholder, and the price fell below their issue price on day 1.

Think about what that means for the person putting £250 of their ISA allowance in…

They aren’t funding growth. They’re providing an exit.

When the public is invited in only once the early gains have been taken, we ain’t being offered ownership. We’re being offered a role as someone else’s liquidity.

IMHO - that isn’t how you build a nation of investors. It’s how you lose one.

The real problem starts AFTER the bell has rung.

Alex’s deeper point is the one I want to dwell on, and it is that the investors’ experience after they’ve bought the shares has been overlooked.

I’d go further.

In the UK, we don’t treat shareholders as owners.

We treat them as a register. And the tail end of a register too.

Compare that with the US.

Owning stocks has become part of the American dream. A generation that may never afford the house with the white picket fence has decided it can still own a piece of the economy, and it behaves as such. US retail investors know the companies they hold, follow them and defend them. Those companies talk to them as owners and get loyal, long-term capital in return.

As is said time and time again, we don’t have that mentality here… But why?

I think a big part of the reason is that British investors don’t feel connected to the companies they own.

We have the stories. We aren’t telling them.

Sure. The FTSE isn’t full of sexy AI companies that lead the headlines every night. [that may change when we float Curation 😏].

But last week reminded us that this isn’t always a bad thing.

Markets have regurgitated any appetite for AI related stocks that it held for most of this year, and the flight to defensive assets and real businesses with real cash flows, has been swift.

The UK is a treasure trove of exactly those. Greggs. Tesco. Frasers. RR. etc. Brands people walk past every day and genuinely love. REITs offer those who are struggling to afford a house to get a share in the upside of property, often with a handsome dividend yield on top.

These are good stories. They’re just not being told to the people who can and want to own them.

Retail doesn’t need to beat the index

Alex cites Bain’s finding that more than 70% of buyout-backed IPOs trailed their benchmarks. That matters enormously to a fund manager, whose performance is judged against an index.

It matters far less to someone like me.

Some of my investments have done well and some have done badly.

I don’t lose sleep over underperforming the FTSE100 or S&P500 on a 12 month time horizon. What I care about is that my wealth grows over the long term, and that I enjoy the process along the way.

And I do enjoy it.

Owning shares means I dig into businesses I care about. I get to follow the economy, markets and the macro events that move my positions. I debate them with friends, with colleagues, and with my Uber driver on the way home after a late night at work [poor fella].

Isn’t that the kind of shareholder every listed company should want?? Patient, engaged, and with no reason to dump the stock because a quarter came in below consensus.

But patience isn’t a blank cheque. People who are willing to stay for the long term deserve to be treated as owners from day one, not tagged in at the end to provide someone else’s exit.

That’s how you build a nation of investors. You make ownership worth having, you make it interesting and exciting. Make me proud to be an owner of your shares.

Trust me - one of the things I love about Brits is that we don’t waste an opportunity to have a gossip, in the pub, on the commute, over the water cooler at work.

The AGM is not an engagement strategy

Small observation.

This week I happened to be in the same building as Diageo’s AGM , which was on Thursday afternoon. No shots directed at company itself, because it’s representative of the rest of the FTSE, but I’d guess the average age of the people walking in was over 60.

If a 1x annual meeting during the middle of a workday is the main way a company meets its owners, we shouldn’t be surprised if those owners drift away, or never show up in the first place.

Why it has to start with companies

The government can reform listing rules. The FCA can tweak prospectus regimes. Financial education campaigns for children is welcomed, but let’s get real with each other for a moment.. it’s a twenty-year fix and our problem is now.

The fastest lever is the company itself. PLCs are the ones who benefit most from a loyal, informed shareholder base. This is a self-interest move, not charity.

So lets actually start sharing some ideas. What can this look like in practice…

• Buy me a drink before we sleep together. What I really mean is get to know your shareholders. What does your investor base really care about? What do we not understand? Where can you provide the clarity that makes me trust you with my money for the next 20 years? What gets measured gets managed.

• Write for owners, not for analysts. A jargon-free summary alongside every set of results, i.e. what happened, why, and what it means for the people who own the business. Bonus points > turn it into a format that I actually consume and put it in the channels I actually receive content. That way I might actually see it.

• Rethink the AGM. After-work sessions so I can actually attend! Digital access incase I can’t… Maybe try to help me know that you’re hosting something in the first place [marketing!].

Just some of my initial thoughts. There are plenty of ways to make small steps towards nurturing a community of investors and owners.

And the regulators’ part…

The most common pushback I hear from companies is NOT “we don’t want to”.

It’s “we need to check with compliance.”

There are real rules. But when talking to your own shareholders about information that’s already in the public domain feels like a legal risk, the system is discouraging the very behaviour it should reward.

The FCA and government could change that by making clear what companies can say to their owners and prospective owners, rather than leaving them to infer it from what they can’t.

The best companies are figuring it for out themselves already.

But remove the excuse for inertia, and others will quickly follow suit.

The opportunity is now

Alex is right that London has an IPO problem. But I’m sure that it can’t be solved at IPO alone.

A healthy listing market depends on a healthy body of owners, people who buy, hold, and come back for the next flotation because the last experience was worth it.

Someone has to want to buy the shares. Then someone has to want to keep them.

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