The The London Stock Exchange is arguing that UK companies are seeking US stock market listings for the wrong reasons and ignoring the risks they take by listing in America.

• Directors risk personal criminal liability for accounting errors under Sarbanes-Oxley rules in America

• London has a more diverse range of investors compared with the US

• Inclusion in the key American index, the S&P, is “questionable” and more likely in London’s FTSE indices

• Liquidity — the ease with with shares can be bought and sold -— is broadly the same in London and America

• Fees charged by advisers to list in London are approximately half of those in New York

Wouldn’t it be good if we could add to this list a bullet point announcing that British firms, listed in London, are more attractive to UK pension funds because of the growth policy of the UK Government encouraging our pension funds to switch to UK investment in our companies?

The statistics for those who have listed in the US but trade in Britain is varied.

The truth is that British Pension Money is not supporting the UK stock market as this blog has pointed out many times, it is not just that there is insufficient stocks to invest in, but we have lost the love of growth stocks and replaced them with de-risking into gilts and for DB schemes heading to buy-out , corporate bonds.

Pensions need to have a balanced DB market and DC market with a view over the lifetime of those it serves not what has happened through the truncation of investment through granting freedom from pensions (DC) or an insurance buy-out/in (DB).

We need “open scheme sweet spot” to have growth stocks and that means we need DB pensions that run on and DC schemes that pay pensions. If we have such schemes again, then we will have long-term needs for our investments. If Schemes close (DB) or Lifestyle into freedoms(DC),  then there is no long-term money for further investment in the London Stock Exchange from pensions. That is the case, that is one of the reasons that more firms are moving listing to the United States and elsewhere.

London recently lost out to Amsterdam for the flotation of the ice cream arm of the FTSE 100 giant Unilever and has faced fears of an existential crisis as more companies are leaving the stock market than new ones are joining. Last year only 17 companies floated and 88 left. So far this year, four companies have listed in London.

If we think that London and it’s City are a source of value to Britain, then we need to use our stock market for investment. But we also need to get others to see our stock market as a place to move their listing. The campaign being run by Baronesses Bowles and Altmann is an example of those who know what they are doing encouraging those who maybe don’t to make London an investment centre. If you signed up to their letter last week, thank you.

We need to recognise and support the UK Stock Market to turn around the turning away of British companies from British listing. But I fear this is not enough.

Now we have a new reason to list in the UK and not abroad and it is the very real governance threat that we see in the USA from a Government that is neither trustworthy or global. These are things that Britain is and shows no sign of moving away from, We are trustworthy and global and for fiduciary reasons, I hope that UK pensions start looking at UK listed companies as less risky than US listed.

But more importantly still, we want UK companies to list that employ people working in Britain and paying UK taxes and pension contributions. This may sound jingoistic but I am old enough to remember when we considered pension funds an economic miracle because British growth was founded on it.

To me the investment in UK listed stocks and the payment of pensions is dependent on will and this is a fiduciary decision of trustees. I hope that the discussions we had in Edinburgh are moving us towards a view of schemes having a life cycle that enables them to view pensions over hundreds rather than tens of years, collective and not individual and embedded into UK society as financial infrastructure.

A thriving UK listed UK company