Revolut weighs dual London and New York listing

Revolut weighs a dual stock market listing in London and New York after its chief executive told Les Echos the firm would prefer the US for an initial public offering, according to the Evening Standard. The fintech, headquartered in Canary Wharf, is now looking at a structure that would put shares on both the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The comments come as London’s market struggles to attract big new floats.

A dual listing is a way to buy optionality in two systems that are drifting apart. Revolut’s chief executive, Nik Storonsky, argued that the US market is larger and packed with institutional investors, hedge funds, fund managers and retail buyers who would “compete fiercely” for the shares, the Standard reports. That liquidity matters because it tends to set the valuation benchmark: when more buyers can trade more easily, the price is less constrained by local risk appetite. For London, even hosting part of the deal would be a symbolic win after a run of companies choosing New York or staying private, leaving the UK market thinner and less relevant for growth firms.

The tension is that the two venues are not interchangeable. A New York listing offers deeper pools of capital but also exposes a company to US regulatory and political risk, including the way American rules can extend beyond US borders through banking and sanctions enforcement. London offers proximity to Revolut’s existing base and a domestic investor story, but fewer recent blockbuster listings have made it harder to argue that the city can reliably provide the same pricing and aftermarket support. Storonsky has previously been blunt about that gap, saying in 2024 that London “can’t compete” with the US market.

Revolut’s most recent valuation—reported as $115 billion in a share sale—raises the stakes. At that size, a float would likely place it among the UK’s largest public companies and could surpass established banks such as Barclays and NatWest in market value, according to the Standard. That is attractive to London’s exchange and to UK policymakers who want flagship names, but it also means the company must persuade investors it can grow into a valuation set in private markets, where price discovery is easier to postpone. Storonsky said in April that a float could happen in about two years, depending on market conditions, and the Standard reports Revolut is targeting further US growth ahead of any IPO to strengthen its pitch to New York investors.

For now, the concrete step is not a filing but a preference statement: a London-based firm saying the deepest bid for its shares is likely to be across the Atlantic.