Pisces, London’s new private stock market, just landed its biggest trade yet. But Wayve’s USD 85 million tender is already raising questions about whether the platform will delay IPOs, rather than build toward them.
The London-based autonomous vehicle company, valued at USD 8.6 billion in a Series D round earlier this year, began trading on Wednesday on the London Stock Exchange Group’s private securities market. The company said it launched an USD 85 million tender offer for employees’ stock, and that the full amount was being sold via the Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System, according to the Financial Times. Wayve CEO Alex Kendall said on social media that the sale reflected the company’s “commitment to retain and reward the best talent in our industry.”
The UK government launched Pisces last year to allow investors to trade shares in private companies in a regulated marketplace as part of a wider push to boost British capital markets. At the time, the government said the platform—which is open to institutional investors, high-net-worth individuals, and employees of participating enterprises—would be a “stepping stone” for companies planning an eventual IPO.
But that is only part of the picture. Ben McMeekin, junior partner at Belfast-based VC firm Sapphire Capital Partners, says the deal shows the framework is not “just an IPO waiting room. It’s a flexible liquidity tool.” In the case of Wayve, it serves as a means of employee retention.
But that flexibility could also undermine the platform’s intended purpose. “The introduction of a regulated secondary market in the UK gives private companies more options. I wouldn’t be surprised if that leads some businesses to delay an IPO, because they no longer need to go public to create liquidity,” McMeekin says. “Instead, they can choose to list when the timing is right for the business, rather than when shareholders need an exit.”
However, Dan Hirschovits, a partner at Paul Hastings, believes the framework can kill two birds with one stone: “For some private companies that are considering using Pisces to facilitate a sale for existing shareholders, an IPO may not be a strategic objective currently, and Pisces does not need to be used as a bridge to IPO only. For other high-growth companies that may ultimately plan to list, but are not yet ready, Pisces provides an alternative way of offering liquidity in the meantime.”
QPlay, which makes device-driven board games, became the platform’s first trade in March. Sapphire invests in the firm. Tradable Private Equity, a vehicle holding shares in Oxford Science Enterprises, has also confirmed a trade under the framework. Wayve is the platform’s largest and most closely watched test case yet, and it will shape how other unicorns weigh Pisces against the traditional IPO route.
