Sunak has much to do to stem the flow of London stocks to New York

Turn on the business news TV channels and the contrast is marked. If a story is from London it will be presented in sober, serious tones. Grey suits talking about grey suits. If it’s from New York about a US stock, the piece will be excitable, suffused with passion. The presenters will be less formally dressed, almost certainly one of them will be a woman.

One place looks dreary and dull; the other is happening and energetic. As a metaphor for the difference between London and New York, the UK and US, it’s always struck me as spot-on. The latter brings a dynamism to money-making that we more reserved Brits lack.

You sense it as you stroll through Manhattan. The tops of the giant buildings are adorned with corporate names. The place reeks of power and might. In London, by contrast, such self-aggrandisement is frowned upon. Our buildings are listed; we’ve got our heritage to preserve.

Likewise, I’ve always thought if I was boss of a new company that was on the up and looking for a stock market listing, I would choose New York every time. I would want to be part of that buzz, I would wish for that positivity to spill over into my brand.

It’s not new, this split. Yet, for a long time, London and New York have been head-to-head, matching each other as the world’s leading financial centres, like two fighters in a ring, slugging it out. Somehow, in the face of US razzmatazz and sheer muscle, dear old Blighty has managed to keep its end up.

Now, though, there is a feeling of New York pulling clear. London’s head, to return to boxing, is starting to drop.

This week, two body blows have struck the City: losing Arm Holdings, the chip designer and our homegrown tech world-beater, to New York; followed by CRH, the Irish-based building materials supplier. These are names on the London Stock Exchange “Big Board” we desperately need, partly because the roll call of publicly quoted large corporations contains so many that really have very little to do with these islands – we cannot justifiably claim them as “ours”.

Arm defected despite intense lobbying from the UK government and authorities, led by Rishi Sunak himself. The fact that Sunak was involved is an indication of just how serious the move was viewed. As a former Goldman Sachs banker with a house in the US, married to an heir to an Indian tech fortune, Sunak is well versed in the ebbs and flows of international finance. It’s in his DNA: who is up, who is down, which is better, London or New York?

He knows as well how these things carry symbolic importance. So when Arm makes the switch, other, lesser tech firms may well be tempted to follow suit. Its relocation and CRH’s is a slap in the face, a blow to our prestige and global standing, bad for business, for UK PLC. Try as we might, it’s difficult to shake off the wounding description from Sir Paul Marshall, the UK hedge fund titan, of London becoming a financial Jurassic Park.

Marshall made that observation a decade ago when London was beginning to appear tired and dated. Since then, tech companies have grown up in the UK only to cross the Atlantic once they’ve reached a certain scale. Part of the reason is the beckoning mighty dollars and the sheer size of the US domestic market (incredibly, we said goodbye to our equivalent when we quit the EU bloc).

Another is that they’re made to feel welcome, they’re embraced in the US in a way that they’re not here. Our institutional investors still like to focus on annual dividend payments, as if these are at the forefront of a tech entrepreneur’s mind. And, even though they would not admit so, they view techs and their young, untried managements with wariness, as not something or somebody they quite get.

New York offers more “beef” than London. Daily trading in Apple shares is almost double the value of all trading on the London Stock Exchange; investors can move in and out of a stock, raise and reduce their holding, without affecting the price, such are the volumes of shares being traded.

Our relative weakness has not been helped with the sale of so many of our publicly quoted brands and businesses to foreigners. Sometimes, you feel the FTSE 100 and 250 and 350 resemble one long shopping list.

Does it matter? Yes it does. A UK listing produces business for professional services firms in the City – in law, accountancy and PR – that account for 10 per cent of the UK economy. The UK wants, needs even, companies to come here and be listed on our stock market.

The government knows this, hence the push to try to persuade Arm to remain. We’ve got our fallbacks of the universal language, globally admired legal system, good schools, London’s draw as a place in which to live and shop, and proximity to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

It’s clear, though, they’re not enough. Engrained attitudes must change. At the same time, we have to make it easier for companies to float their shares. There are still too many rules and requirements. They’re designed to protect the investor but they hinder and obstruct – somehow a better balance has to be found.

The government has to be seen to like and understand big business and the City in a way the previous administration clearly did not. Hopefully, if Brexit is finally done, Sunak and his colleagues can begin to recover lost ground.