The US Is Nabbing Europe's Stock Listings. Are Headquarters Next?

The uproar in the City of London surrounding the drift of stock-market listings to New York is a storm in a British teacup compared with the fury in Spain over the US ambitions of Ferrovial SA. The Madrid-based owner of Heathrow Airport wants to add a US listing — and move its headquarters to the Netherlands. The link between where a company’s shares trade and where its head office is located may be indirect, but it exists and deserves increased scrutiny.

London is suddenly seeing a flurry of multinational companies favor New York as their primary or sole listing venue. There’s some corporate finance logic to such moves. It may be more efficient for a firm to report its earnings and have its shares trade in the currency of its dominant cashflow — often dollars. If it’s expanding in the US via acquisition, New York-listed shares can be used as payment. And a US listing also means being more visible to America’s large analyst and investment community.