Bloomberg
Deliveroo to Dimon Stoke Fears About London’s Post-Brexit Future
(Bloomberg) — If Deliveroo Holdings Plc’s listing was meant to hang an ‘Open For Business’ sign over the City of London, the opening day crash in the shares jarred somewhat with the message the U.K. had intended to send about post-Brexit Britain.Personally welcomed by Chancellor Rishi Sunak, the food delivery company’s initial public offering should have been a beacon to lure tech firms against competition from New York and Hong Kong, which have been winning the larger part of the business. Instead, concerns over the company’s governance and the treatment of its riders combined to produce one of the worst market debuts in City history.The ignominious flotation was a symbolic end to a quarter that saw London’s future as a financial center once again put in the spotlight. Since the U.K. left the European Union at the start of the year, London has faced a series of challenges to its pre-eminence, most notably the embarrassment of seeing Amsterdam — a city one tenth its size — take over as the No. 1 location for European share trading.London’s response has been a flurry of reviews into the fintech industry and listing rules, but the Square Mile’s hunt for a new identity remains a work-in-process. Early predictions of dramatic deregulation — the so-called Singapore-on-Thames option — have proved unfounded, perhaps no surprise given the City had an outsized role in writing many…
