A board video games developer will grow to be the primary non-public firm to checklist on a brand new breed of change aimed toward boosting London’s capital markets.
QPlay will use a buying and selling platform operated by JP Jenkins, which has crushed the London Stock Exchange to draw the primary itemizing on a non-public markets change underneath the brand new Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange (Pisces) regime.
The system was launched in June 2025 as a method to purchase and promote stakes in non-public firms and a part of a authorities initiative to bolster the UK’s capital markets.
UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has mentioned the Pisces system would “reinvigorate the UK’s capital markets” by permitting workers, traders and founders in non-public firms to promote their inventory on exchanges throughout restricted buying and selling home windows.
It is hoped it can encourage firms to ultimately checklist their shares in London and get traders extra enthusiastic about UK shares.
The LSE gained approval from the Financial Conduct Authority final August to run its non-public share-trading platform, adopted three months later by JP Jenkins, a British firm that has lengthy facilitated the buying and selling of shares in unlisted firms.
JP Jenkins mentioned the choice to promote shares on Pisces “allows founders and early-stage investors to make controlled, partial exits, facilitates the recycling of capital and also offers a valuable alternative to trade sale and IPOs”.
QPlay has greater than 5mn gamers on-line and is the maker of Outsmarted, which it says is the UK’s best-selling board recreation with greater than 1mn copies offered.
It is owned by Velocity Capital EIS and its shares can be listed on JP Jenkins’ platform on March 18. Investors will be capable of purchase and promote stakes within the non-public firm till March 24.
The LSE has mentioned its first non-public markets commerce will happen on March 25 with funding firm Tradable Private Equity. The commerce will happen via a automobile that holds shares in Oxford Science Enterprises, moderately than by way of a list of shares within the life sciences enterprise capital agency itself.
Both ministers and the LSE had hoped a Pisces itemizing would happen in 2025 following the launch, but it surely has taken time for firms to have the boldness to think about using the brand new system.
One individual conversant in the battle to get a enterprise to checklist on Pisces mentioned there had been “a long queue of companies willing to go second”.
Stuart Nice, founder and chief government of QPlay, mentioned: “We are naturally excited about this next stage of growth and look forward to leading the way for other great British companies who can now realise the benefits of offering their stock on the JP Jenkins Private Market.”
However, some market commentators have raised considerations concerning the lack of disclosures required by firms and the way market abuse legal guidelines is not going to apply.