The hustle, said Fran Lebowitz, is not a new dance step, but an old business procedure. Undoubtedly so. The question, as London, Hong Kong and Tokyo near the halfway point of 2022, is which beleaguered global financial centre has taken this analysis most closely to heart.
London, certainly, is looking hungry. Last week, the FT reported the UK government’s intensified efforts to convince SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son to list the British chipmaker, Arm, on the London Stock Exchange.
The details of the latest carrot efforts at suasion — and of the faintly sinister “stick” strategies that for now remain in the back pocket — are revealing. Son was unambiguous back in February when he first said publicly that the Nasdaq exchange in the US was the most suitable, tech-centric venue to list Arm.