London is going private

Europe's gap between private and listed companies is the widest on record, and the UK is at the sharp end of it — which is why firms keep investing in private capital.

What happened

• Europe has recorded the widest gap on record between privately owned and publicly listed companies. PitchBook counted 14,395 private equity-backed companies in Europe as at 31 March 2026, against 6,240 listed companies — the lowest number since 2017.
• What is driving it is the striking part. This is not a story about private equity booming; it is a story about public markets emptying out. Over the first quarter, private equity-backed companies grew by 0.7%, while listed companies fell by 5.8%.
• The UK sits at the sharp end. Britain is now Europe's largest private capital market, with private equity-backed firms outnumbering listed companies by roughly two to one, and public listings falling 6.2% a year over five years.
• London dropped out of the global top twenty venues for initial public offerings in late 2025, and the proportion of UK firms choosing to list at home fell from 71% in 2019 to 46% in 2025.
• Companies are being bought off the London Stock Exchange at speed, and the buyers are mostly American. They can do it because UK-listed companies are cheap relative to what the same business would cost in the US, so a sponsor can pay a premium to the share price and still get a bargain.
• In May 2026 the London Stock Exchange launched PISCES, a venue allowing shareholders in private companies to sell during scheduled trading windows rather than continuously, without a full listing. It gives founders, employees and early investors a way to cash out without the company ever floating.

How to use this in applications and interviews

• Do not simply say London is in decline. It is not what a partner — least of all a capital markets partner — wants to hear, and it is not what the data says.
• The commercially interesting question is narrower and harder: is a shrinking public market a symptom of a failing exchange, or a rational response by companies to a private capital market now offering them better terms?
• The point to make is that if corporate ownership migrates into private hands, the legal work migrates with it: fewer equity capital markets mandates, more leveraged buyouts, sponsor-to-sponsor sales, continuation funds, private credit financings and take-privates.
• When a firm tells you it is investing in its private capital platform, this is the data behind that decision. Saying so shows you understand a law firm as a business responding to where its clients are going.
• The take-private wave, the pro-growth reshaping of the Competition and Markets Authority, and the debate about how to make London attractive again are not three stories. They are one story about where the UK thinks its growth will come from, seen from three angles — and making that connection unprompted is what separates a good answer from a memorised one.

Key terms

• Take-private is the acquisition of a listed company by a private buyer, after which its shares are delisted.
• Continuation fund is a new vehicle a sponsor uses to hold an asset for longer, giving existing investors the option to exit or roll over.
• PISCES is the London Stock Exchange's intermittent trading venue for shares in private companies, launched in May 2026.