Steven Fine likes to know what everyone is doing. By 7.45am, the chief executive of London-based investment bank Peel Hunt is usually in the office, checking in with traders, researchers and colleagues across the business.
“I'm a people person,” he says. “I like to wander around and talk, poke my nose into other people's business, ask annoying questions.” That curiosity is useful when running a business that serves companies seeking capital — and shareholders deciding whether to provide it.
“We're a service business,” Fine says. “We sit in between companies and shareholders and we have to serve both.” The interests don’t always align.
Which leads him to a question he has for the wider UK market: How many people know where their pension savings are invested? “The biggest issue affecting the UK financial markets is demand, not supply,” he says. “And it's domestic demand.”
Why companies stayed private
Fine remembers when a stock-market listing was the natural ambition for a company — what he calls “the ultimate extension of that growth.” Listed shares could fund acquisitions and expansion. But private equity offered another route. While regulation after the financial crisis made listing more demanding, cheap borrowing helped lift private company valuations, and businesses gained value without improving performance.
“You're not improving the business,” Fine says. “There's no margin expansion. It's multiple expansion.”
During the pandemic, public markets helped established companies raise emergency funding. They also attracted newcomers betting on permanent changes to how people worked, shopped and travelled.
“A lot of those companies probably shouldn't have come to market,” Fine says. Their poor performance left “a very sour taste on public markets.” Higher interest rates and political uncertainty made company boards cautious, and private equity investors found it harder to sell businesses at the prices they wanted.
“If it's very compelling, it will work,” Fine says of prospective listings.
According to EY, only one company joined the London Stock Exchange in the third quarter of 2026.
Where the pension money goes
Fine thinks the UK's investment habits deserve as much scrutiny as its listing rules. Low-cost global index funds have become popular, but funds weighted by market value invest most heavily in the world's largest businesses.
US technology companies have taken a greater share. In September 2026, US equities accounted for 72.9% of the MSCI World Index, while the UK accounted for 3.4%.
“We're obsessed with costs,” Fine argues. “We're actually not obsessed with returns.”
He points to countries such as Australia, where pension funds have historically invested a greater share of their equity portfolios in domestic companies.
“Should there be a home bias?” he asks. “Why do other countries do it?”
Concentrating retirement savings in one country carries risks. Pension trustees must act in savers' financial interests, and overseas investments can help spread risk. But Fine believes people should understand the choices being made for them. He suggests asking colleagues who manages their workplace pension, then asking how much is invested in UK companies.
“I think the home bias issue is one that is imposed on us by trustees and the pension fund administrators,” he says, “as opposed to asking us, what do you want?”
Running a listed business
Fine isn't commenting from the sidelines. Peel Hunt is publicly listed, and his days move between clients, staff, compliance and the practical demands of running the firm. He also serves as deputy chair of the Financial Conduct Authority's Markets Practitioner Panel, which advises the regulator on market policy.
While Fine welcomes recent reforms aimed at making public ownership less burdensome, he thinks some boards are following customs that the rulebook never required.
“Of course you need transparency, you need disclosure, but you don't need overdisclosure,” he says. Peel Hunt's own annual report fell from 184 pages in 2022 to 120 in 2026.
Fine also questions the UK's broader corporate governance framework. Under the UK Corporate Governance Code, “comply or explain” allows companies to depart from certain provisions if they explain why. Fine argues that this has become a “comply or else culture.”
“Why don't you just change it around?” he asks. “And call it explain or comply.”
Peel Hunt, which is listed on AIM, follows the separate QCA Corporate Governance Code. He isn't proposing to abolish safeguards — he just wants boards to use the discretion they already have. It's also how he runs Peel Hunt: listen to different teams, question assumptions and make decisions with a view of the whole business.
The deals still getting done
Fine can point to transactions that show public markets still have value. Peel Hunt helped UK technology company Softcat raise £354m in September to part-fund its acquisition of US technology firm General Datatech.
“Because they're a public company, they can do these things,” he says, arguing that larger listed companies — particularly in the FTSE 250 and above — can still raise money for worthwhile plans. A successful deal can prompt other boards to reconsider their own. And Fine sees a virtue in the UK's ability to keep going through uncertain times.
“We're quite good at another very good British thing, which is muddling through,” he says. “It's not spectacular, it's not disastrous, but you sort of get through.”
What troubles him is the prospect of overseas buyers acquiring UK businesses that local investors have overlooked.
“Why create these great companies and allow the rest of the world to benefit?” he asks. Regulatory reform has made listing more appealing, but it cannot create an appetite for UK shares on its own.
Fine likes asking questions and listening for opportunities others might miss. His argument for London's market is much the same: before British investors send their money abroad, they ought to know what they may be overlooking at home.
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