Mar 28, 2025 · 48m · 20vc
Julia Hoggett, CEO @ LSEG plc: The Myths and the Reality of The London Stock Exchange · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of the 20VC podcast, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) CEO Julia Hoggett discusses the systemic challenges facing UK capital markets, dismantling myths about US listings while outlining critical reforms for pensions, taxes, and outcome-based regulation to revitalize the domestic economy.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 11.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 2.6 Guest teaching 4.5 Guest disagreement 2.3 Harry pushing back 2.2
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 13:43 Dismantling the US listing myth
Julia directly calls out popular media narratives and investment bank motives, citing hard data that 9 out of 20 UK companies listing in the US delisted and most are down over 80%.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 22:10 Challenging London's developer appealHarry refuses to accept London's tech appeal, explicitly listing high cost of living, taxation, and crime as reasons top developers prefer Dubai or Europe.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 14:50 Correcting market liquidity statsJulia corrects common misperceptions on liquidity by explaining that FTSE 100 free float turnover is higher than the S&P 500, and pointing out that Yahoo Finance data is wrong by a factor of three.
Harry holds his own ▶ 8:11 Citing Canadian pension fund direct investment modelsHarry demonstrates solid domain expertise by specifically bringing up CPPIB and Ontario Teachers Fund to question why UK pension funds fail to invest directly in private growth companies.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How Julia Became CEO of LSEG | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Harry asks standard career background questions regarding Julia's journey to becoming CEO of LSEG. Julia gives a warm, conversational overview of her path from sociology to the FCA and LSE. | |
| Retail Disenfranchisement and Historic Pension Reform | 1 | 5 | 1 | 0 | Harry asks how the disconnection between society and capital markets occurred. Julia provides a detailed historical explanation regarding retail investor regulatory barriers and post-Maxwell pension accounting reforms. | |
| Outcome-Based Regulation Over Deregulation | 2 | 4 | 3 | 2 | Harry asks whether deregulation is necessary. Julia firmly rejects the term deregulation as a misnomer, reframing the conversation around outcome-based regulation. | |
| The Five Fingers of the UK Reform Agenda | 3 | 6 | 2 | 2 | Harry demonstrates knowledge by citing CPPIB and Ontario Teachers Fund as potential models. Julia takes control of the segment by outlining the five fingers of the UK reform agenda. | |
| Busting US Listing Myths & Perverse Taxes | 4 | 8 | 5 | 5 | Harry presents tech founder arguments favoring US listings and brings up Deliveroo as a counterexample. Julia strongly dismantles the narrative with hard statistics on US listing failures, turnover rates, and faulty Yahoo Finance data. | |
| ARM, Dual Listings, and the Capital Flywheel | 4 | 5 | 4 | 5 | Harry challenges Julia on dual listings and argues London has lost tech developer appeal due to crime, tax, and regulation. Julia pushes back using the ARM listing case study and regulatory sandboxing history. | |
| Prioritizing Net Real Returns Over Cost | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry asks clarifying questions about pension fund risk mindsets and scale. Julia explains the necessary pivot from cost-minimization to net real return maximization. | |
| Addressing UK CEO Compensation Disparity | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Harry strongly agrees with Julia that UK CEOs are underpaid compared to international peers. Julia outlines how asset management governance rules accidentally constrained executive pay at global scale. | |
| The Reality of Brexit on UK Markets | 3 | 6 | 3 | 3 | Harry probes on whether Brexit irreparably damaged London or unified EU markets. Julia firmly rejects the premise, backing her argument with figures showing LSE raised more equity capital than the top three European venues combined. | |
| Tapering and Replacing Stamp Duty | 2 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Harry asks how to practically eliminate stamp duty and what sweeping changes she would make. Julia presents a nuanced strategy for tapering stamp duty while maintaining Treasury revenue. | |
| Quick Fire Part 1: LSE as a 300-Year Fintech | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Harry presses Julia to give a one-sentence pitch to convince Revolut to list in London over the US. Julia maintains her scrappy fighting stance and reframes LSE as a 300-year-old fintech. | |
| Quick Fire Part 2: System Change and sleepless nights | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Harry brings up a counterargument from former defense minister Grant Shapps asserting ESG is immoral. Julia offers a balanced breakdown distinguishing climate risk assessment from rigid regulatory box-ticking. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Hoggett: UK stamp duty perversely taxes domestic stock investments over foreign ones
“Stamp duty is a perversity in the UK. We charge people to invest in UK stocks, but we don't charge them to invest in US stocks or European stocks.”
Hoggett: Most UK companies listing in the US perform poorly or delist
“In the last 10 years, only 20 UK companies have listed in the US that have raised over a hundred million. Of those, nine have already delisted, only four are trading up and the rest are trading down by over 80%.”
Hoggett: Apple surpassed FTSE 100 market cap in summer 2020
“And in the summer of 2020, Apple was worth more than the FTSE 100 for the first time.”
Hoggett: UK creates more unicorns than any country besides US and China
“We create more unicorns than anywhere outside the US and China, and we're a world leading capital market by any measure.”
Hoggett: UK growth rivaled top nations when pensions backed risk capital
“We used to have behemothic pension funds that invested a huge amount of their assets in driving risk capital into our economy, and when we did, our growth rates were as high as anywhere else in the world, and our capital markets were as vibrant as anywhere els…”
Hoggett: UK financial regulation disenfranchises retail investors while leaving crypto friction-free
“And so under the guise of protecting retail, we've arguably disenfranchised them a bit. We've made it harder to access advice. We've made it harder for them to access regulated markets and yet our user journey in the cryptocurrency world is incredibly straight…”
Hoggett: UK post-GFC growth slowdown stems from pension scheme de-risking
“And I think you can trace some of the growth reduction that we've had post GFC to that sort of trend over the previous 2030 years.”
Hoggett: The UK holds the world's second-largest pool of institutional capital
“We have the second largest pool of institutional capital in the world.”
Hoggett: London Stock Exchange listing rules are now globally competitive
“We changed our rules last year. We are now on a par with anywhere else in the world in terms of the flexibility and usefulness of our listing rules. They hadn't actually been changed since the eighties in any material fashion.”
Hoggett: Top 11 UK pension schemes committed 5% to private companies
“Our 11 largest defined, default defined contribution schemes have committed to committing five percent of their total assets to private companies by 20 30.”
Hoggett: FTSE 100 daily free-float turnover exceeds S&P 500 and NASDAQ
“The percentage of the company's free float that is turning over in a given day is higher on the FTSE 100 than it is on the S&P 500 or the NASDAQ.”
Hoggett: Yahoo Finance underreports London market liquidity by over 3x
“So if you go to Yahoo Finance and look at the liquidity in London versus liquidity in the US, it's actually wrong. Last time we checked it by a factor of over three.”
Hoggett: $10B to $20B companies risk getting lost in US markets
“Increasingly if you are absolutely, if you are a 10 to twenty billion company, don't go to the U.S. Because you'll get lost.”
Hoggett: London market would have valued Arm's AI growth equally
“AI trade, which I'm utterly convinced would have happened in London as much as it happened anywhere else. I don't think, I think it's a, you can't prove a negative, but I think it's a falsity to say a London market wouldn't have valued that the same way.”
Hoggett: Only 1% of Arm's post-IPO investors were UK-based
“In the first period of time after they listed only one percent of the investor base in Arm, which is a great British company based in Cambridge, coming out of our ecosystem, was owned by UK investors. Not one of our major pension funds had them as one of their…”
Hoggett: Canadian and Australian pension funds outperform UK funds despite higher fees
“So if you look at, say, the performance of Canadian and Australian pension funds, they tend to pay higher fees than the fees that are being paid by UK pension funds, but they make higher real returns.”
Hoggett: Removing UK domestic investment tax breaks depressed national investment
“So we used to have tax breaks to invest in the UK. We took them all away and then wondered why people didn't invest as much in the UK. Other countries do, don't do that.”
Hoggett: UK is second largest equity capital market in free-market world
“We are the second largest equity capital market in the world in a free market economy.”
Hoggett: LSE briefly beat Nasdaq as world's top market by capital raised
“Capital market, you know, and this is the thing that is sort of forgotten in, for most of the first few weeks of January, we were the largest equity capital market in the world by capital raised, ahead of NASDAQ.”
Hoggett: UK capital market ranks third globally, trailing only US and India
“We are the, I mean, as of today, if you take the 20, 24, 25 numbers by total capital raised, the only equity capital market countries in the world that are bigger than us are the US and India. Everywhere else is behind us. We're the only European market in the…”
Hoggett: Pension fund reform is the top priority for Rachel Reeves
“Pension Fund Reform. Turn the taps on.”
Hoggett: Corporate climate impact is a legitimate component of valuation
“A focus on the climate impact of companies is not wrong. If you think about an existential threat to multiple generations of what is happening to our planet, then actually it is a wholly legitimate thing to take into account in consideration of value.”
Hoggett: Prescriptive ESG reporting perversely favors extractive industries over green startups
“And there have been places where over-regulating these things has actually produced perverse outcomes, where investors are incentivized to invest in big extractive industries, for example, rather than medium-sized, scaling, green economy companies, because one…”