We’re NOT trying throughout the water for IPO, insists Atom Bank boss

Atom Bank’s boss said he was ‘not looking across the water’ at a New York listing as he 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 that the market is coming back to life after a dearth of activity.

And he said it ‘very much remains the case for me personally’ that when there is a float it should be in London.

‘We’re not looking across the water and saying we need to investigate New York, that’s not a conversation,’ he added.

His comments will boost the feeling that London is fighting back after a number of firms, including Cambridge-based chip firm Arm, chose to go to Wall Street instead. 

London calling: Atom boss Mark Mullen (pictured) said the bank was not in a position to go public – but welcomed signs that 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 suggests the City is bouncing back.

Atom, meanwhile, reported an operating profit of £27million for the year to the end of March, up from £4million the year before, helped by strong lending growth. 

The bank, valued at £362million in its most recent funding round, was forced to abandon plans for an IPO in 2022 amid a difficult market.

Mullen said ‘the reignition of activity’ in the market was welcome but would not alter the timing of a listing.

‘The worst thing you can do is to get to public markets and then underperform,’ he told the Mail. 

‘You’ve got to really have a company that has been mature enough to make sure that that doesn’t happen.

‘The right time for us will be a combination of us having built a sufficient track record and confidence 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’ UK company.

He said: ‘We employ UK people and we serve UK customers. The logical, natural place for us to list this business if we do will be in London.’

He admitted that the bank’s shareholders – who include Spanish bank BBVA and private equity firm Toscafund –would also have a view.

Mullen said it was ‘not really an active conversation at the moment’ but there was a ‘general sense around the boardroom’ sharing his view on London as the best place to list.

Mullen, who runs a bank that employs 500 staff, also spoke about its policy of a four-day week, first implemented in 2021.

He said that it had been ‘considerably less challenging’ than navigating the rise of working from home.

The latter could result in managers being ‘afraid to ask their employees to come back to the office’ and a ‘rebelliousness’ among staff about coming in, the chief executive told the Financial Times.