So Wise Is Heading to the US. Will the Supercharged Voting Rights of Its Founder Follow?

Back in 2021, the arrival on the London stock market of Wise, a rapidly expanding money transfer company, generated a feelgood factor at a useful moment.

- Nils Pratley

It came a month after overhyped Deliveroo flopped on debut. And, since Wise was a pure fintech business, as opposed to a pizza delivery outfit with an app, there was reason to think the UK might be getting its act together in the sector that politicians swoon over. Shoreditch's finest, and its Estonian founders, would show the way in UK fintech. Wise sported a £9bn valuation.

Now the firm wants to switch its primary listing to New York in search of a wider pool of investors, more active trading in its shares and "a potential pathway to inclusion in major US [stock market] indices."

A secondary listing will be retained in London but we know what usually happens: nine-tenths of the share-trading gravitates to the primary location.

The obligatory description on these occasions - "a fresh blow for London" - applies. Wise, with revenues of £1.2bn and underlying pre-tax profits of £282m, is a bad one to see succumb to temptations of New York.