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When UK regulators suspended pre-emption rules so struggling businesses could rapidly issue shares retail shareholders complained about dilution to earnings but then showed little appetite in subscribing to these blockbuster financings through apps like PrimaryBid.
Deep capital markets supported by a wider retail base are often cited as one reason for vibrant US entrepreneurship. But retail share ownership is something of a lost cause in the UK. It rose thanks to giveaway Thatcherite privatisations in the eighties. It has been on the slide ever since. The movement was hurt recently by the collapse of Neil Woodford’s Patient Capital Trust and problems at Sirius Minerals. Both businesses — an investor in early-stage science businesses and a Yorkshire fertiliser miner — had big retail shareholder bases.
https://www.ft.com/content/0a9d487e-1836-4d56-8454-e002e1ed5856
