Bloomberg quotes Andrew Collins on WE Soda cancelling its London IPO
The world's largest producer of natural soda ash has scrapped plans to sell shares on the London Stock Exchange less than two weeks after announcing the move. WE Soda's flotation would have been the UK's largest so far this year and the company would have entered the blue chip FTSE 100 index.
This comes after the firm's chief executive, Alasdair Warren, declared just two weeks ago that "London still works", and said that the London market would "well understand our business".
Bloomberg quotes Andrew Collins, Partner, on the news. In full, he says:
“The market will of course jump up and down in response to this story, especially as the WE Soda float was heralded as a ‘great story for the LSE’ after a number of tech companies ditched the UK in favour of other venues.
“But in reality, there are all sorts of reasons why this float might have been pulled. It could simply have been a problem with the business, or it may have thought it would struggle to raise the necessary funds (which again could be for any number of reasons), or there may be a more positive reason - like receipt of an offer to buy the business. We simply don’t know. This story is in no way proof that London is a poor listing destination.
“People love to read into these sorts of stories, but London has shown great strength and resilience in the past, and in my view will continue to do so.”
Read the full article in Bloomberg here.
