Former UK finance minister Philip Hammond says the market volatility unleashed by US President Donald Trump’s recent barrage of tariffs could prompt more British fintechs to list in their home country.
London raised just $1bn from IPOs last year, pushing UK capital markets to 20th place in a ranking of global IPO venues compiled by Bloomberg. Spain, Turkey and Oman were among the venues to have outperformed the UK capital.
In an exclusive interview with Sifted, ex-chancellor Hammond — a key member of the Conservative government from 2016 to 2019 — said the ongoing uncertainty induced by Trump’s tariffs regime could make London a more attractive IPO venue.
“It’s not going to be easy, but it always helps if the Americans are busy shooting themselves in the foot,” Hammond tells Sifted.
Railsr, the London-based fintech for which Hammond serves as chairman of the board, completed its merger with listed payments company Equals Group on Tuesday.
The lord of fintech
Following his departure from government, the former finance minister was awarded a life peerage, granting him the title of Lord Hammond of Runnymede.
He’s since worked with a number of investment firms and tech companies: taking on roles as chair of crypto custody company Copper and chairman of the board for Embedded Finance Limited, the entity behind embedded banking fintech Railsr, shortly after negotiations for the Equals merger began.
Hammond also sits on the board of four other companies, including defence technology company Tekever.
Railsr, the company Hammond joined as chairman in February 2024, was saved from bankruptcy a year earlier as part of a pre-pack administration process that saw its existing business entity put into administration, so that it could continue trading under the name Embedded Finance.
As part of the restructuring, Railsr offloaded its holdings in collapsed German fintech Wirecard’s UK division, which sources previously told Sifted had scuppered previous attempts at a sale.
“It was necessary for Railsr to shrink in order to grow,” says Hammond. “We had to remove all the bits of the business that were questionable and that could provide any kind of impediment to the future vision.”
Hammond speaks to Sifted as that process bears fruit. More than a year later, Railsr’s merger completed on Tuesday, with the fintech roping in private equity outfits Towerbrook and JC Flowers to help finance the £283m takeover deal.
Alluding to the transaction, which has been more than a year in the works, he says: “I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been an unusually long process.”
Private equity exits and IPOs
Private-equity funded mergers like Railsr’s offer an “alternative solution” to IPOs when public markets are challenged, says Hammond.
“Anything that keeps those businesses in the UK is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned,” he says.
In the meantime, he’s hoping initiatives pursued by both the previous and current government, particularly around freeing up pension fund investment, will help revive UK capital markets as the US fails to deliver.
“The more people like the FT and The Economist write about the coming dollar crisis, the less attractive I imagine an IPO in dollars is to business founders,” he says. “If anything that makes London look like a relatively stable and predictable environment to IPO.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/philip-hammond-interview/
