糖心视频

Morning Report: 2017’s continues across the pond.

Shares of Alfa Financial Software (Alfa) traded up more than 30 percent last Friday after the financial-services tech shop went public on the .

Alfa went public worth just shy of 拢1 billion. According聽, the firm was worth 拢975 million at its . Tracking the firm’s performance using聽, Alfa closed its first trading day worth nearly 430 pence. The company is worth 拢1.29 billion at that price point.

According , Alfa’s debut is “London鈥檚 largest so far this year.” That fact, coupled with its strong early trading performance, has engendered from members of the London technology scene. The event did secure some United States-based attention, however:

Press dearth or not — more from the above-quoted James Clark in a 2016 interview — Alfa’s debut is quite interesting. The firm, which sold around a fourth of its shares in its listing, was incredibly closely held,聽.

That makes it an odd company, at least from a United States perspective. A unicorn that doesn’t have half of Silicon Valley’s backing? Surely that is a form of sacrilege.

Cap table oddities aside, the firm has something else nearly聽verboten on these shores: profit. From the firm’s , the following:

The markets are closed both here at home and in London, where it is the聽. As such, there is no new trading data for Alfa to share this morning.

Alfa’s debut shows that there is appetite for tech listings in more places than just New York City. Perhaps we’ll see enough UK tech listings by year’s end to generate a cohort we’ll track for a few years. That would be welcome.

From the :

Nothing. It’s a damn holiday. Go outside and try to grill in the fog.

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