Many firms queue up for London Stock Exchange listing

Hyderabad, March 11 (IANS) Fuelled by their global ambitions, several Indian companies from an array of sectors are seeking to get listed on the London Stock Exchange to reap benefits from the liquidity and profile that a listing there offers.

LSE officials and advisors feel the LSE's future pipeline of Indian equity offerings is going to be strong. Both the Main Market and Alternate Investment Market (AIM) hope to attract Indian companies from a numberof sectors, including  energy, manufacturing and financial services, they said here Thursday.

Ibukun Adebayo, head of business development for India at LSE, told reporters that  Indian companies were evincing keen interest in getting listed on LSE for immediate expansion plans and because of large merger and acquisition opportunities in London and rest of Europe.

"London is well positioned to finance Indian companies' global ambitions by offering the world's largest pool of international investment capital, highly liquid and well regulated markets, and a worldwide profile," he said.

The LSE officials and advisors are in India to hold a series of workshops to highlight various capital raising instruments, markets and trading platforms London offers.

There are currently 66 Indian or India-focussed companies on the LSE's markets. Together, they have raised $5.6 billion.

The largest Indian premium listing in London till date is Vedanta's $1 billion issue in 2003. The largest GDR (global depository receipt) listing was Tata Steel's $500 million issue in 2009.

Alan Mackenzie, Head of London Listings and Broking, Religare, said Indian companies engaged with the firm for getting listed on LSE plan to raise $250 million.

Sunil Kakkad, partner and head of India Group, Lawrence Graham LLP, London, said four Indian companies were at various stages of listing in the summer of 2008 when recession hit the world. Of these, two companies will be listed this year.