Plans to build a private stock market to give more firms access to liquidity have attracted “global interest”, the boss of the London Stock Exchange has said.

LSEG CEO David Schwimmer said the new market, known as PISCES, would be “a great opportunity for investors to get access to private assets.”

“We’ve had a lot of interest from private equity firms and from private companies themselves,” he said.

“This is not just from the UK — it’s global, companies from the US, Europe and in Asia.

“I think there is clearly an issue for private companies in terms of access to liquidity…there is an opportunity for PISCEs to be a very innovative structure to address that challenge.”

The PISCES proposal would see private companies periodically access a tailored public market liquidity infrastructure for their shareholders while remaining private, with the aim of developing a vibrant ecosystem and capital markets that support scaling companies across their lifecycle and funding journey.

The move would “allow us to invite private companies to use the LSE public trading market infrastructure for a short period of time and then go back to being a private company: they can be public for a day,” Schwimmer said.

He added that the UK’s financial regulator was expected to prepare a set of rules governing the new framework by May, with the hope of launching the new private market in July. The new market could prove attractive to fast-growing British tech firms in search of deeper pools of capital who do not wish to be constrained by the strictures of the public markets.

It comes as LSEG reported a 7.4% rise in income to £8.9bn in 2024, with pre-tax profits up 5.3% to £1.3bn. The company said it had improved the availability of datasets across its cloud-based platforms, as well as reaching “an important milestone in our partnership with Microsoft, with the first products now generally available for customers, and a strong pipeline for 2025.”

Schwimmer said the London Stock Exchange remained a vital component of the group despite accounting for only 3% of total revenues. He dismissed concerns about the prospect of British companies listing in New York, citing economic uncertainty brought about by the Trump administration.

“I think that there is a lot of focus on IPOs in this market and a lot of focus on some companies that may be thinking about it but if you think about the companies that have gone from the UK to list in New York it’s about 20 companies that have raised over $100m,” he said.

“Of those, nine are delisted and the rest are trading down by an average of over 80%.”

LSEG shares rose 2.8% in early London trade. The stock has risen by 27% over the past year.

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