Visma's Hesitation Casts Shadow Over London's IPO Renaissance
London's fragile recovery in initial public offerings faces a significant test as Visma, the €19 billion (£16.6bn) software giant, considers postponing what would be the capital's largest floatation in years. The Norwegian business software group, backed by private equity firm Hg Capital, may delay its London listing until the second half of 2026 following a brutal sell-off in global software stocks that has forced investors to reconsider their positions.
AI Disruption Triggers Market Turmoil
The dramatic shift in market sentiment followed Anthropic's release of a legal productivity tool designed to automate tasks including contract reviews, compliance checks, and non-disclosure agreement triage. Although the company stressed that the software does not provide legal advice and requires professional review of outputs, the market reaction proved both sharp and immediate.
For investors, the fundamental concern centers on whether expensive data subscriptions and specialized software tools might become easier and cheaper to replace as general-purpose artificial intelligence continues to improve. This anxiety has manifested in hedge funds piling into short positions against software stocks, driving steep losses across listed peers and complicating what had been shaping up as a rare coup for London's financial district.
A Narrowing Window of Opportunity
Visma has been weighing a London float since late last year, with advisers hoping to capitalise on what appeared to be a tentative recovery in UK IPO activity following a strong finish to 2025. A €20 billion-plus listing would have represented the clearest signal yet that London could still attract large, high-quality technology firms. However, that optimistic sentiment has deteriorated considerably as software stocks face mounting fears that new AI tools could compress margins across the entire sector.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq experienced a significant tumble this week, while the iShares Expanded Tech Software ETF has declined over 20 percent since the beginning of the year. Behind the scenes, hedge funds have turned increasingly bearish, with short sellers making an estimated $24 billion betting against software stocks so far in 2026, according to data from S3 Partners.
Investors appear to be treating the software sector as structurally vulnerable rather than cyclically weak, creating a challenging backdrop for pricing a substantial initial public offering. This fundamental shift in perception makes the timing of any major listing particularly difficult.
London's Persistent Bottleneck
Hg Capital has maintained ownership of Visma since 2006, supporting the company's expansion through hundreds of acquisitions and repeatedly rolling its stake into newer funds. This long-term ownership structure has provided the buyout firm with flexibility that public markets typically lack. Visma was last valued at €19 billion during a private share sale back in 2023, after shelving an earlier IPO in favour of bringing in institutional investors including Jane Street and Altaroc.
Hg still controls approximately 70 percent of the business alongside co-investors such as Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC and US firm TPG. This arrangement, without a forced exit timeline, grants Hg the ability to wait for more favourable market conditions, even if that means London misses out on a major listing in the short term.
London's IPO revival remains narrow, fragile, and heavily dependent on a handful of large transactions landing successfully. If software stocks remain out of favour throughout 2026, the pipeline of potential listings could thin once again, just as momentum appeared to be returning to the market. Visma has declined to comment on its listing plans amid the current market uncertainty.
