LSE and Brexit: time to tap opportunities in Asia

THE London Stock Exchange (LSE) may be the sixth-largest stock exchange in the world and the second in Europe (following Euronext), but it faces huge uncertainties following the Brexit decision from the June 2016 referendum.

Recently, some of the growth of the market has been fuelled by initial public offering (IPOs) from technology firms. In May 2018, Avast, a cybersecurity firm, had its debut on the LSE as the year's biggest tech IPO across Europe and one of the five largest tech IPOs of all time on the London Stock Exchange. The firm raised US$200 million in primary proceeds and US$616.6 million in secondary proceeds.

However, the strength of LSE remains in the financial sector. For example, the constituents of the FTSE 350 index (top 350 firms by market capitalisation listed on LSE) in November 2018 include 95 firms that are in the financial sector. These include banks (10 firms), equity investment instruments (20 firms), financial services (24 firms), life insurance firms (6 firms), real estate investment and services (7 firms) and real estate investment trusts (19 firms). On the other hand, the software and computer…