London market tune changing after bad rap
- 27 November 2025
Texas-based Fermi CEO Toby Neugebauer’s words were easy listening for London Stock Exchange international business development head Tom Attenborough, who thinks the mood music around Paternoster Square generally is “pretty good” heading into Christmas after an uneven year for one of the world’s major capital markets.
“We come over here to enhance our visibility to the world,” Neugebauer said after the Nasdaq-listed datacentre power company picked London over other European and Asian stock markets for a dual listing in October.
Fermi’s rollout focus is on the US but it would have a major dependence on global supply chains and “when I think international commerce I think London”, said Neugebauer.
The company’s London listing and associated equity raising came amid soft 2025 numbers for LSE initial and overall public offerings. The second half of the year has been better. Attenborough says the 2026 pipeline is solid.
Ahead of hosting one of the largest ever gatherings of mining industry and government leaders in London to kick off Resourcing Tomorrow 2025, he says the Fermi listing also bodes well for the sector. “I think it reflects people’s broader risk appetite to invest in earlier-stage businesses which of course is what you need in the mining sector,” he says.
“We’re starting to see risk appetite tick back.
“Sentiment is recovering from some of the geopolitical shocks of the start of this year. It is still an interesting world that we live in, but I think people are now used to the new normal. We’ve seen volatility levels come back down under 20, both in Europe and the US, which is normally a good sign.
“There is certainly a greater feeling of optimism heading into the New Year.”
In its latest London market commentary EY agreed “sentiment is improving”, albeit off a low base. It said the c£200 million raised from 12 main market and AIM listings in 2025 was nearly 66% down on the same time last year. In fact, London IPOs are now up to 19 for this year. “The long-term UK IPO pipeline is strengthening for early-2026, suggesting a rebound in activity in the next six to 12 months,” EY said.
A longer-term decline in London mining IPOs, compared with markets such as Canada and Australia, has been well documented this year as the industry’s geopolitical stocks have risen. It has been portrayed as being symptomatic of a broader loss of risk appetite in the European financial centre. One news report said Australia’s plus-300 mining IPOs and $53 billion of follow-on capital raisings of the past decade compared with 37 LSE IPOs and $14 billion of follow-on capital raised.
Attenborough says the bigger picture is, as always, more nuanced.
Since the start of 2024, $51.4 billion of equity capital has been raised in London through 667 transactions – 630 follow-ons plus the IPOs. The total compares with $517.6 billion in the US and $236.5 billion in India but it still puts the UK sixth on the chart of equity capital raised in the period.
“It puts London over double the next nearest European market,” Attenborough says.
“We have got the FTSE 100 hitting practically all-time highs, which is fantastic. The day-to-day liquidity we’re seeing in the market is very strong. We’ve seen over half of this year's IPO volume on the London market come through since the start of October.”
He says mining project and company financing will be a hot topic at the Resourcing Tomorrow Government Roundtable, to be attended by more than 50 government representatives as well as mining leaders from around the globe.
“I think what we will hear is there does remain a challenge. The junior market still finding it tough to raise funding and the larger established businesses are focused on rationalising the portfolio and optimising shareholder returns rather than directly engaging in large scale exploration.”
Bolstered by Valterra Platinum’s secondary listing in London and US$2.5 billion follow-on share offering after its demerger from Anglo American, the LSE has seen circa-$3 billion of mining and metals funds raised in 2025.
Greece’s Metlen Energy & Metals became a €6.7 billion listing in August. Its bauxite and aluminium-dominated metals arm contributed 15% of its €5.49 billion 2024 revenues. Chair Evangelos Mytilineos said London was a better cultural and business fit for Metlen than the US, where “I don't think we would get people to take the same interest in the company”.
"Frankfurt, Paris, Milan or Amsterdam have not managed to overtake London and having withstood a difficult period I think is on course to get back to the top," Mytilineos said.
South African gold miner Pan African Resources said its elevation to the London main market from AIM in October “marks a new chapter for [the company] that will be defined by greater market visibility and broader access to investors”. It followed global mining and trading heavyweight Glencore’s decision in August to retain its primary LSE listing after a review of alternatives.
“Whilst I think mining’s not been the easiest sector anywhere around the world in the last couple of years London continues to play a leading role in it,” Attenborough says.
“By market cap it’s around a $600 billion sector in London. We don’t have the number of companies that Toronto has – we've got 167 companies on market in the sector – but that $600 billion is about 13% of the global [industry] market cap, which puts it ahead of the TSX at 12%, the ASX at 11% and New York at 10.5%.
“At $600 billion it is just under 10% of the total market cap of the London Stock Exchange. So it’s a very important sector.”
London-listed mining heavyweights Rio Tinto, Glencore, Anglo American and Antofagasta have a combined market value of more than $265 billion. Glencore said in August it would retain its primary LSE listing after starting a review earlier in 2025. Rio Tinto shareholders rejected a proposal to move its primary London listing in May and Anglo American has said it would retain its primary LSE listing post a proposed mega-merger with Canada’s Teck.
“At the small end it’s been tough but we have had some interesting smaller transactions,” says Attenborough.
“Across the likes of rare earths we’ve seen some activity; not all through classic IPOs but listings where companies have done reverses into existing cash shells, which don’t show up in the IPO numbers. But they are ways in which some of those juniors have, in quite an enterprising way, found their way to market and raise a little capital. Those are the sort of trends we’re seeing.
“There has also obviously been a lot of interest in gold stories. Some of the companies that we've seen come through in the last couple of years have has gone from strength to strength. Endeavor Mining, for example, is now a FTSE 100 business having a phenomenal run.”
Attenborough says LSE supply-side reforms – focused on AIM and secondary capital raising rules – have been generally well received. Attention has turned to this week’s UK budget and what steps the government might take to “ensure people's hard-earned savings are delivering the best returns and driving more investment into the UK economy”. Part of that might be measures aimed at improving the investment appeal of small and medium-size listed companies.
“We’re also launching our Private Securities Market later this year, which will make us the first exchange to have a regulated crossover market,” Attenborough says.
“It’s essentially the London Stock Exchange’s first new equity market for 30 years.
“So now we’ve got the Main Market at the top, AIM or growth market and we will have the Private Securities Market as a bridge between private and public.
“So that’s keeping us very busy as well. We’re really excited about that.”
