LSE’s blight does not discourage Swiss Exchange boss

Recent years have seen some high-profile companies pull away from the London Stock Exchange (LSE), these have included AstraZeneca, Ferguson, Arm Holdings, Wise, CRH, Flutter and Ashtead
But that’s “more a UK thing” according to Bjorn Sibbern, CEO of SIX Swiss Exchange, which secured Europe’s biggest initial public offering in 2025. Zurich-based SMG Swiss Marketplace Group was valued at roughly 4.5 billion Swiss francs ($5.6 billion) following its stock market debut in September. It was also the largest tech IPO in Europe since 2021.
“Companies have decided to leave the UK for listings in the US but I think that’s more a UK thing, we do not see it to the same extent in Europe”, Sibbern said, citing Swiss skin care company Galderma’s float on SIX in 2024 in what was Switzerland’s biggest IPO since 2017.
“Galderma is a good example, they could have listed in the US (but) they decided to list in Switzerland and it has been a great success. So, we do not see the same trend”, he said.
“Many companies that have global profiles quite often have a connection to Switzerland. As part of their listing consideration, they will look at Switzerland. Whether they will list with us or consider a dual listing, only time will tell. But it is not only Swiss companies that look at us”.
SIX became the only exchange operator to have listing venues in Switzerland, the EU and the UK following its acquisition of Aquis in a £225 million deal in November 2024. The exchange completed a £2.8 billion takeover of Spanish rival BME in June 2020.
“Instead of sitting and defending our equity trading in Spain and Switzerland, we decided to play offence”, he said. “With Aquis we can offer trading for our customers in 16 markets. But we also said ‘we keep the brand, we keep the business model, we keep the management team’ and they will continue to compete with us in Spain and Switzerland”.
Sibbern said that the Swiss and Spanish exchanges will see Aquis’s technology to support trading”. In two years’ time, hopefully equity trading in Spain and Switzerland will be done on the same platform as Aquis”, he said.
The SIX Swiss Exchange CEO confirmed the Swiss bourse is on a lookout for more acquisitions this year as part of its growth strategy. Any deals will likely be around SIX’s four business lines, which are exchanges, securities services, financial information and banking services.
Sibbern, who was named on a list compiled by financial firms of the Most Influential in European Finance earlier this year, was promoted to CEO of Switzerland’s exchange operator in January only a year after joining as global head of exchanges.
He admitted that the rise of private markets has led to the number of listed companies falling in Europe and globally, but said the public and private markets share a “healthy relationship”.
In March, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, followed in the UK’s footsteps to propose measures supporting “exits by investors in private companies, possibly through multilateral intermittent trading of private company shares”.
“There has been a significant decline in the number of listed companies compared to 40 years ago. Alternative funding from private equity is here to stay and is tempting to say that’s a big threat But I think we go hand in hand”, he said. “Being a listed company gets you much more publicity in a world where customers and stakeholders want to know the companies they are buying products from”.
Global IPO activity accelerated in Q3 2025, with deal volume rising 19 per cent and proceeds surging 89 per cent, compared with a year earlier, according to EY. But Europe missed out on the biggest stock market debuts with nine of the top ten global IPOs coming from either India, the US or Greater China.

Andy Jalil

The writer is our foreign correspondent based in the UK.