’It feels like we’re being dressed up for a sale’

That loud sucking noise? That’s the sound of companies being prised off the London Stock Exchange by foreign and private buyers.

In the last week alone, four FTSE-listed firms worth a combined £15bn have received bids or approaches, bringing the total number of buyouts and delistings to at least 22 this year.

After four proposals from the Swedish private equity firm EQT, and amid pressure from activist investors, the board of Intertek, a FTSE 100-listed testing company, is “minded to recommend” a £9.2bn takeover bid.

On Thursday, Tate & Lyle, a sugar company that started on the Liverpool docks in 1859, received a £2.7bn offer from US rival Ingredion. Private healthcare provider Spire, long the subject of takeover speculation, has recommended a bid from UK-based Toscafund. Hiscox, the FTSE 100-listed insurer, has reportedly received interest from Canada-based Intact Financial Corp.

“It’s the deeply discounted valuation the business has got to,” says one shareholder in Intertek. “The UK market is very unfashionable at the moment, and the environment is very difficult in terms of particularly domestic investors having disinvested and continuing to disinvest [in listed stocks].”

No doubt this week’s politically driven sell-off in sterling has created a window of opportunity. But longer term, factors for the wave of deals include the valuation gap with the US (the FTSE 100 currently trades on a forward price to earnings ratio of 14, compared to 24 for the S&P 500), British pension funds’ low allocation to domestic equities, and record levels of dry powder in private markets.

The steady drumbeat of acquisitions in London’s financial services sector has prompted particular concern. In April, shareholders in Schroders approved a sale of the historic British fund house to US-based Nuveen for £9.9bn. City lawyers and brokers expect further consolidation and deals to come.

“It feels like we’re being dressed up for a sale,” one employee of Legal & General told the Financial Times this week. However, António Simões, chief executive of the asset manager, denied the rumours that US private capital firms were circling. The chair of L&G, Sir John Kingman, is due to step down this month after nine years in the role.

Photograph by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images