During a recent 12-month period, BAT Industries of London listed its shares on no less than 10 stock exchanges in five countries, partly in the hope of raising its profile in those markets and, ultimately, its stock price. But the British multinational was not part of any stampede. Despite the recent growth of international equity trading, there has been no great rush by companies to seek a listing outside their home market.
In fact, excluding junior markets such as the USM in London, foreign listings on seven major stock exchanges havc increased by only about 3% over the past two years, on a net basis, to reach 1,439 at the end of September. Most of the increase was accounted for by Tokyo and Zurich, which added 22 and 16 listings respectively. Frankfurt and New York also attracted a few new companies, London was unchanged and Amsterdam and Paris lost a few.
Overall, London had by far the largest number of foreign listings (505), followed by Amsterdam (278) and Zurich, Frankfurt and Paris (each with close to 200). The world's two biggest stock markets, New York and Tokyo, had only 58 and 33 foreign listings respcctively.