英国退出市场：死亡还是复苏？（英）2026

UK Exit Market: Dearthor Revival? Institutional Research Group Nicolas Moura, CFA, CAIASenior Research Analyst,EMEA Private Capitalnicolas.moura@pitchbook.com An analysis on UK private and public markets Charlie FarberManager, Data Analysis PitchBook is a Morningstar company providing the most comprehensive, mostaccurate, and hard-to-find data for professionals doing business in the private markets. Adi GeorgeAssociate Data Analystpbinstitutionalresearch@pitchbook.comPublished on 11 June 2026 Key takeaways •The UK is Europe’s largest private market, yet its public exit infrastructure isfailing to keep pace.Accounting for a quarter of all European PE deal count over thepast decade, the UK has an unrivalled base of private capital. This note examineswhy the LSE has lost its appeal as an exit venue, what structural and regulatoryforces are behind the retreat, and whether 2026 marks a genuine turning point. Contents •The UK’s private markets have never been more dominant relative to its publicones.PE-backed companies now outnumber publicly listed ones by 2-to-1, and VC-backed companies by 8.7-to-1. PE-backed companies have grown at a 3.3% CAGRover the past five years, and VC at 4.7%, while UK public listings have shrunk at 6.2%per year. London dropped out of the top 20 global IPO venues in September 2025,and the share of UK companies choosing to list domestically has fallen from 71% in2019 to 46% in 2025. •Take-private activity remains elevated and shows no sign of abating.Afterreaching 34 transactions in 2023, £18.1 billion was deployed across 24 UK take-privates in 2025, and 2026 is already tracking at £12.5 billion in the first four monthsalone. US sponsors have been disproportionately active, treating the LSE as asource of underpriced assets. Financial services has been the dominant sectorby value. •Sponsors are increasingly selling to each other rather than accessing publicmarkets.Sponsor acquisitions as a share of total UK PE exit count have climbedfrom 39.2% in 2023 to 62% in 2026 and have accounted for over 50% of total UKexit value since 2024. The consequence is visible in holding periods: The medianholding time for UK PE-backed companies has extended from five years in 2016 to7.2 years in 2026, compressing fund IRRs and delaying distributions to LPs. •The LSE’s structural challenges are deep and mutually reinforcing.A persistentvaluation discount, thinning liquidity, and an investor ecosystem in retreat havecompounded regulatory friction that historically disadvantaged high-growth andfounder-led businesses. UK pension funds now allocate just 4.4% of assets toUK equities, down from more than 50% 25 years ago. Since 2016, 380 UK equitystrategy funds have closed against just over 200 launches, steadily reducing thepool of active institutional capital available to support new listings. •The conditions for a revival are forming, and 2026 may be the year the UK exitmarket turns a corner.PE exit value reached £20.9 billion across 131 transactionsin the first four months of 2026, pacing for a record year by count. The UKLRreforms, stamp duty relief for new listings, six Bank of England rate cuts, and thelaunch of PISCES—which recorded its first two transactions in a single week inMarch—collectively represent the most supportive conditions for UK public listingsin years. With US market and political volatility making London a relatively moreattractive venue for European companies, and a growing pipeline of sponsor-backed assets overdue for exit, the structural case for a recovery in UK publiclistings is stronger today than it has been at any point in the past five years. Introduction For much of the past decade, the UK has occupied an uncomfortable paradox. Itsprivate markets have remained the largest in Europe, accounting for one-quarter of allPE deal count on the continent over the past 10 years, and it has been a magnet forbuyout capital, venture capital, and international sponsors alike. Yet its public marketstell a starkly different story. The London Stock Exchange (LSE), once a cornerstoneof global capital markets and the exit venue of choice for sponsors and founders,has seen its standing erode steadily. Listings have dried up, high-profile companieshave migrated to the US, and the public route, which historically was the most value-generative exit option, has become the exception rather than the rule. This note setsout to examine why. We will look at how severe the retreat from public listings hasbeen; what it means for PE and VC investors dependent on exit activity to return capitalto LPs; the structural and regulatory forces that have made London a less compellingvenue and if they are being addressed; and critically, if there is reason to believe 2026represents a turning point for the UK exit market or merely a brief window before theheadwinds reassert themselves. The anatomy of the drought The shrinking UK public market The gap between the UK’s private and public markets has never