The Financial Outlook for Personal Investors: A decline in UK listings is not entirely negative

Russ Mould of A J Bell discusses the Bloomberg piece pointing out that 45 firms have left the UK market this year through mergers and acquisitions. But is it such a bad thing that almost £50bn has gone to investors or that UK assets are both cheap and desired? It's true that the number of companies quoted in the UK has halved in 30 years but the decline has been true in the US and Australia too. We have too few tech and growth companies and too much stodge but the real problems have come from cheap debt – making riskier shares less attractive – and unduly tightened reporting requirements, making listing more laborious.