A London listing used to mean you had been signed up by a merchant bank and ticked by the London Stock Exchange as being suitable. You were a member of a rather exclusive club. While UK institutional investors would take your listing as a mark of quality assurance, they would take a large part of their comfort from the relationships they had with the bank that brought you to market. Among advisers there was a common understanding of due diligence and what to do to groom the company for listing. Very little of it was written down. Unlike the position in the US you were most unlikely to be sued if things went wrong.
While London listings will typically now have an overlay of a US-driven approach to disclosure and diligence, elements of the traditional environment persist for primary listings through the sponsor regime and continue to give the London market its distinctive character.
