UK treasury wants Revolut to go public on LSE

The company has no firm plans for an IPO but has hinted that it was prioritising a listing on the Nasdaq in the U.S.

The British treasury wants London-based fintech Revolut to go public in its home country.

That’s according to a report Friday by the Financial Times, which says the treasury plans to play up the London market’s appeal in discussions with Revolut, now the most valuable fintech in the U.K.

Treasury officials told the Financial Times city minister Tulip Siddiq is expected to meet Revolut this fall as part of a series of talks with businesses. One source said Revolut’s possible listing is likely to come up. The company has no firm plans for an IPO but has hinted that it was prioritising a listing on the Nasdaq in the U.S.

The FT notes that such a move — though it could be years away — would be a blow to the U.K. markets, which have lost several firms to New York.

Revolut Chair Martin Gilbert said in July that the firm was at least a year out from an IPO and would keep an open mind on where that listing would take place.

And the firm’s U.K. CEO, Francesca Carlesi, had indicated earlier this year that a London listing was still possible.

The U.K. is our home and is also one where a lot of our investors come from, Carlesi said. We know that companies are always better off to list where their biggest market is.

Friday’s FT report came on the same day that Revolut announced that it had signed agreements with investors for a secondary share sale which valued the firm at $45 billion. Revolut was last valued at $33 billion following a 2021 funding round.

The firm says it launched the secondary share sale to generate liquidity to employees and to draw both new and existing investors, and attributed the valuation to its financial performance in recent quarters, including revenues of $2.2 billion in 2023 — a figure that is 95% higher than that of the prior year — and a profit before tax of $545 million, a company record.