London's Future Dims As Companies Flee To Wall Street

London is used to punching well above its weight in global financial markets.

Photo Insert: UK-listed companies are hopping on the bus to New York.

For years, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) attracted an outsized share of investor capital relative to the size of the UK economy, reflecting the international nature of its listed companies, Hanna Ziady reported for CNN Business.

In 2000, UK-listed equities made up 11% of the MSCI World Index — which tracks more than 1,500 companies that account for the vast majority of the global stock market by value — according to Citigroup.

Fast-forward 23 years and the UK market now represents just 4%, the bank’s chief global equity strategist wrote in the Financial Times.

Investors have been drawn to faster-growing markets in other parts of the world, such as China and India, and to big tech IPOs on Wall Street. Meanwhile, UK pension funds have slashed their exposure to local stocks in the search of more certain returns on government bonds.

Then came Brexit and years of political turmoil that undermined London’s status as the king of European finance and battered Britain’s standing in the eyes of investors.

The combined effect has weighed heavily on the FTSE 100, which, despite a recent hot streak, has trailed the gains in benchmark exchanges in the European Union (EU) and the US since the global financial crisis.

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