London IPOs Hit 28-Year Low Amid AstraZeneca Exit Concerns (1)

London marked the slowest first half-year for IPO volume since 1997, a grim milestone punctuated by a report that AstraZeneca Plc’s chief executive officer wants to move the company’s listing to the US.

With companies going where liquidity is abundant, a steady drip of firms being taken private, and too few initial public offerings coming along to replace them, pressure is mounting to reverse the slow but inexorable shrinking of London’s historic trading venue. More than $100 billion worth of London-listed companies have announced or executed plans to move to New York in recent years, Bloomberg calculations show.

AstraZeneca ...