The Atom Bank boss said he was “not looking across the pond” on a New York listing and insisted London would be the “logical” place for it to float.
Mark Mullen said the Durham-based lender was not yet in a position to go public, but welcomed signs the market was coming back to life after a lack of activity.
And he said that “for me personally it remains true” that when there is a float it should be in London.
“We’re not looking across the pond and saying we need to investigate New York, that’s not a conversation,” he added.
His comments will reinforce the sense that London is fighting back after several companies, including Cambridge-based chip company Arm, opted to go to Wall Street.
Call to London: Atom boss Mark Mullen (pictured) said the bank was not in a position to go public but welcomed signs the City is coming back to life.
But a successful listing by computer maker Raspberry Pi and more initial public offerings (IPOs) in the pipeline suggest the city is recovering.
Meanwhile, Atom reported an operating profit of £27m for the year to the end of March, up from £4m a year earlier, helped by strong loan growth.
The bank, valued at £362m in its most recent funding round, was forced to abandon plans for an initial public offering (IPO) in 2022 amid a difficult market.
Mullen said “the revival of activity” in the market was welcome but would not alter the timing of the listing.
“The worst thing you can do is hit the public markets and then underperform,” he told the Mail.
“You need to have a company that has been mature enough to ensure that doesn’t happen.”
‘The right time for us will be a combination of having built enough track record and trust with our existing investors and the City to say “now is a good time.” And we’re not there yet.
Mullen added that Atom was a “very proud” British company.
He said: ‘We employ UK people and serve UK customers. The logical and natural place for us to list this business, if we do, will be London.
He admitted that the bank’s shareholders, including Spanish bank BBVA and private equity firm Toscafund, would also have their say.
Mullen said it was “not really an active conversation at the moment” but that there was a “general sense in the boardroom” that shared his opinion about London as the best place to list.
Mullen, who runs a bank that employs 500 people, also spoke about his four-day week policy, implemented for the first time in 2021.
He said it had been “considerably less challenging” than dealing with the rise of working from home.
The latter could lead to managers being “afraid to ask their employees to return to the office” and to “rebellion” among staff when it comes to returning, the CEO told the Financial Times.
