The boss of challenger stock exchange Aquis has launched a blistering attack on Jeremy Hunt today, claiming he wanted to throw an egg at the Chancellor for his “anti-competitive” push to turn the London Stock Exchange into the “Nasdaq of Europe”.
Hunt delivered a post-budget briefing for City bosses at Bloomberg’s headquarters on Wednesday night in which he doubled down on his ambition to transform London’s beleaguered exchange into the tech-heavy Nasdaq.
The call has been a common refrain from the Chancellor over the past year but has already triggered backlash from rival London stock exchange Aquis, which has previously warned Treasury officials and the City minister Bim Afolami that the comments are hampering Aquis.
Speaking after the event, Alasdair Haynes told City A.M. he was “bloody livid” at the Chancellor for repeating the comments and Hunt was “inhibiting competition” between the stock exchanges.
“I’ll tell you what, if I had an egg in my pocket, I would have thrown it at him and probably be thrown out of Bloomberg,” Haynes said.
“I’ll tell you what, if I had an egg in my pocket, I would have thrown it at him and probably be thrown out of Bloomberg.”
Alasdair Haynes
“It seems to me that we have a Conservative party that promotes competition, and in this one case is turning around and inhibiting competition. They want a monopoly. Well, that is hurtful to Aquis.
“It’s something to turn around and say we’re going to support the London Stock Exchange and make it the Nasdaq – it is hurtful and anti-competitive. And I think that’s really bad coming from the Chancellor.”
The Aquis chief said that while the City minister Bim Afolami and Financial Conduct Authority boss Nikhil Rathi have been supportive of his exchange and were “pro-competition”, the Chancellor was behaving as if he wanted a non-executive director role at the exchange after the election.
“Because I mean, what the hell is the reason he’s saying these things about the London Stock Exchange?,” he added.
The backlash comes amid a drive from Treasury to revive the London Stock Exchange over the past year after a drop-off in listings and fears over the health of UK equity markets.
London’s flagship exchange has been plunged into a crisis by a dearth of new IPOs, with just 23 firms raising around $1bn last year. In his budget yesterday, the Chancellor launched a consultation on a new private stock market called Pisces, which will be run by the London Stock Exchange, in a move designed to boost the pipeline of IPOs for the bourse.
Hunt has said numerous times over the past year that he wants to turn the market into the “Nasdaq of Europe”.
Haynes pointed to the fact that the Nasdaq was born as a challenger to the incumbent New York Stock Exchange and said Hunt was failing to grasp the dynamics of the City and capital markets.
“To stand up as a Chancellor and say we actually want to support and make [the London Stock Exchange] the Nasdaq of Europe means he doesn’t understand it,” he added.
New York boasts two behemoth bourses in the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange.
Nasdaq transformed itself from a small electronic quotation system in the 1970‘s into a technology-backed giant with a cumulative market capitalisation of some $22 trillion.
The Treasury was contacted for comment.
