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As Misys eyes a £500m float, here are the four biggest IPOs in London this year

After months of rumours, London-based tech firm Misys looks set to float on the markets again with an IPO in early November.

Priced in the region of £500m, the financial software business’ float would the biggest float of the year on the London Stock Exchange and could potentially be a major boon to the main market which has seen activity drop due to Brexit uncertainty.

By contrast, activity on the alternative investment market (AIM) has been brisk this year, with activity up compared to 2015 highlighting the thriving market for smaller companies.

In what is proving to be a mixed year, we’ve put together some of the most interesting London-based floats of 2016 so far.

Misys

The Paddington-headquartered financial software company, whose software is used by 48 of the world’s top 50 banks, is rumoured to be eyeing a £500m float for 25% of the company.

The company was taken private in 2012 after being acquired for £1.3bn by Vista Equity Partners, but estimates now value the company at up to £6bn.

Metro Bank

One of the new generation of challenger banks, Metro Bank raised £400m from its stock market float in March which valued the company at £1.6bn.

Now part of the FTSE-250 list of companies, the float could have raised as much as £500m had it not coincided with bank stocks taking a battering on the markets in the early part of the year.

LoopUp

Shoreditch tech startup LoopUp has grown rapidly in the last few years, growing 40% in 2014 and spreading across the globe with offices in San Francisco and Hong Kong.

Its float earlier in the year on AIM valued the company, which provides conference call software, at £40.8m and is set further drive international growth at the tech firm.

Time Out

City guide publisher Time Out, which has grown out of its Shaftesbury Avenue headquarters to almost every major city on Earth, managed to raise £90m for its float on AIM in June.

Valuing the company at £195m, the publisher is already putting the funds to use to build its own e-commerce platform and announced it was forging ahead with its plans to open a market in Porto.

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