A bit of housekeeping at Fujitsu

Fujitsu today announced its intention to de-list its shares from the London Stock Exchange – essentially a recognition of the sea-change in financial markets over the past thirty years and an obvious way to cut costs.

Fujitsu was listed on the LSE in 1981. Around that time there was a spate of listings by Japanese companies on the LSE and NYSE, as they were rapidly internationalising their operations. Japanese investment banks (I worked for one of them in the late 80s) were keen to list the large industrial companies on international exchanges so that they could access more capital, give them a local stockmarket presence (in markets that were still very geographically siloed) and also to help the banks themselves in those geographies.

People can now invest in the Japanese market very easily and Fujitsu can access the world's capital markets from Shimbashi. There is no need from a financing point of view to have a listing on the LSE and it is unlikely to make any difference at all to customers nowadays. The world has moved on.

Posted by Peter Roe at '09:09'