The UK Is Still Losing Cheap Stocks to Private Equity Bargain Hunters

Summary

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Merryn Talks Money: "The UK Is Still Losing Cheap Stocks to Private Equity Bargain Hunters"

Date: May 15, 2026
Host: Merryn Somerset Webb
Guest: John Stepek, Senior Reporter, Bloomberg

Episode Theme & Purpose

This episode centers on persistent undervaluation in the UK stock market and how that leads to UK-listed companies being snapped up by private equity—often at premiums, but with long-term implications for ordinary investors and the broader economy. Merryn and John avoid discussing UK political turmoil directly, instead focusing on market dynamics, recent deals, implications for shareholders, and practical investing strategies as both the UK and US markets face their own sets of challenges.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. UK Stocks and Private Equity Takeover

• UK Market Undervaluation

  • John highlights how the UK market has been undervalued and underappreciated for a long time, making it ripe for private equity buyers, especially amid recent political distractions.
  • Quote:

    "We've been banging on or discussing for a long time about how UK market undervalued, underappreciated, lots of decent stocks running around, private equity buyers kind of like chewing bits of the market off left, right and center."
    — John Stepek (03:00)

• Recent Examples

  • Aspire Healthcare received a major bid from Toscafund, causing its share price to jump significantly, demonstrating ongoing interest from private equity.
  • Chris Hughes' Bloomberg piece was cited ("Private Equities Liquidation of London Goes On") about Intertek Group in talks with EQT, suggesting a dwindling pool of quality UK-listed companies.
  • Activity isn’t limited to one sector; investment trusts, particularly in property, are also being consolidated.
  • Quote:

    "One day there won't be any decent London listed companies left for private equity funds to buy and it's kind of hard to disagree with them."
    — John Stepek summarizing Chris Hughes (04:09)

• Long-term Consequences

  • The trend is troubling for UK investors—once local stocks are bought out, ordinary UK savers lose direct access to domestic opportunities, worsening the UK’s longstanding “wealth problem.”
  • Capital formation and shareholder democracy suffer as ownership shifts away from the public.
  • Quote:

    "If you don't buy this cheap stuff, somebody else will and then it won't be available on the market for everyone in the UK to invest in. And the whole wealth problem looms larger, larger."
    — Merryn Somerset Webb (04:38)

2. UK Market Sentiment & Foreign Investment

• Investor Reluctance: Political instability and high energy prices further deter foreign investors.
• Signal Shifts Required: The hosts agree that making the UK more internationally investable would be straightforward in principle ("simple, not easy," as they note), but difficult in practice.
• Quote:

  "It'll take quite a lot for the UK to start sending a different kind of signal to the international investing community."
  — Merryn Somerset Webb (05:17)

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3. US Market: Relentless Run & Lurking Risks

• IPO Patterns & Market Peaks

  • Citing historical data, Merryn points out a surge in IPO value typically precedes market crashes.
  • Notably, the latest wave of large IPOs in the US market is still pending, suggesting further upside may remain before any imminent correction.
  • Quote:

    "There's still a way to run for the US market."
    — Merryn Somerset Webb (06:29)

• Inflation Figures & Fed Policy

  • Recent US inflation data exceeded expectations, reminding markets that the Fed might raise rather than cut rates—a scenario typically bearish for equities.
  • Rising rates strengthen the dollar and can hamper global asset prices.
  • Quote:

    "One thing that markets don't like is higher interest rates. Higher interest rates also imply a stronger dollar."
    — John Stepek (07:19)

• AI, Tech Windfalls, and Political Risks

  • A South Korean policymaker’s suggestion to tax AI demonstrates potential for abrupt regulatory risks in hot tech sectors.
  • The rapid index drops highlight the market’s fragility and how political action could abruptly halt tech’s momentum.
  • Quote:

    "If data is the new oil, then data is also where the new windfall taxes are going to fall."
    — John Stepek (09:14)

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4. Market Breadth & Concentration Concerns

• Narrow Leadership

  • Despite headline gains, most S&P 500 stocks declined recently; new highs are increasingly driven by a shrinking group of companies (e.g., "Mag 7", semiconductors).
  • For index investors, this concentrated performance presents a risk.
  • Quote:

    "You have these new highs, but under the water it's really being led by a narrower and narrower and narrower group of stocks. And that should be really worrying for anyone who holds an index, for example."
    — Merryn Somerset Webb (12:27)

• Practical Advice

  • John reiterates the value of equal-weighted trackers and diversification over chasing high-flyers like Nvidia exclusively.
  • Regular, calm portfolio reviews are advised, but "boring" investment habits serve most people best.
  • Quote:

    "For most people, trying to stay calm, revisit your portfolio maybe once every six months to make sure that you aren't too exposed to something you don't want to be too exposed to and just kind of get on with it."
    — John Stepek (13:47)

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5. Premium Bonds: Updates & Behavioral Finance

• Changes to Prize Structure

  • The Premium Bonds prize fund rate (UK NS&I) is being improved:
    • Odds to win now 22,000:1 (previously 23,000:1)
    • More high-value prizes: 12 extra £100k, 24 extra £50k, and 49 extra £25k
    • Proportion of small (£25) prizes falling from 47% to 37%
  • Merryn is excited about the potential for larger wins, even though it's not the most financially rational product.
  • Quote:

    "If you think to yourself, quite want to be sure of getting my capital back, perhaps I'll just do something that is a bit more fun. I'm pro premium bonds. I've got a lot of premium bonds."
    — Merryn Somerset Webb (15:04)

• Behavioral Policy Suggestions

  • John wonders if more countries will turn to lottery-style debt to attract funding by leveraging people’s natural affinity for gambling.
  • The "excitement premium" of lottery bonds could reduce a country’s cost of capital and foster more investor democracy.
  • Quote:

    "Your cost of capital as a country goes down because people want to gamble so you can raise the money, I mean, it strikes me as a much more sensible way to raise money."
    — John Stepek (16:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Highlight | |-----------|---------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:00 | John Stepek | "We've been banging on or discussing for a long time about how UK market undervalued..." | | 04:38 | Merryn | "If you don't buy this cheap stuff, somebody else will and then ... won't be available..." | | 06:29 | Merryn | "There's still a way to run for the US market." | | 07:19 | John | "One thing that markets don't like is higher interest rates..." | | 09:14 | John | "If data is the new oil, then data is also where the new windfall taxes are going to fall."| | 12:27 | Merryn | "...being led by a narrower and narrower and narrower group of stocks. And that should be really worrying..." | | 13:47 | John | "For most people, trying to stay calm, revisit your portfolio maybe once every six months..."| | 15:04 | Merryn | "I'm pro premium bonds. I've got a lot of premium bonds. I know it's not the most financially efficient thing..."| | 16:33 | John | "...an excitement premium so your cost of capital as a country goes down because people want to gamble..."|

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 02:58–05:08 | UK Market undervaluation and private equity activity
• 05:08–05:40 | Foreign investor reluctance towards the UK
• 05:40–07:59 | US market performance, IPO patterns, inflation & Fed policy
• 08:15–09:31 | Tech sector: AI windfall tax scare in South Korea
• 12:18–13:09 | Market breadth concerns and practical investing strategies
• 14:12–16:13 | Premium bonds prize changes and behavioral finance
• 16:13–17:39 | Lottery bonds as government funding; fun perks for shareholders

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Overall Takeaways

• UK equities remain cheap and attractive, but increasingly at risk of being bought out by private equity, with long-term implications for domestic investors' wealth opportunities and "shareholder democracy."
• US markets exhibit classic late-stage bull signals (narrow market breadth, lofty returns in select sectors), but no crash yet. Inflation remains a risk, as does political intervention in technology.
• Pragmatism and patience still rule for most personal investors: diversify, review periodically, and avoid “exciting” over-concentration.
• On the lighter side, structural changes in NS&I premium bonds illustrate behavioral economics in public finance—perhaps a hint for other nations seeking creative funding.

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For actionable insights and practical saving and investment considerations, this episode balanced warnings about declining public market opportunity with pragmatic portfolio advice and light-hearted takes on UK premium bonds.

Transcript

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Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio Radio News.

[Aaron Swartz]

Welcome to the Merit Talks Money Market Wrap where we talk about the biggest moves in the market this week and what is driving them. I'm marisumset Web Editor at Large for Bloomberg UK Wealth.

[John Stepek]

And I'm John Stepek, Senior Reporter, Bloomberg and author of the Money Distilled newsletter.

[Aaron Swartz]

Right. John, there is a lot going on, but do you know what we're not gonna do?

[John Stepek]

What are we not gonna do?

[Aaron Swartz]

We're not gonna talk about the government.

[John Stepek]

No.

[Aaron Swartz]

We're not gonna talk about the leadership crisis. We're not gonna talk about Keir Starmer and who might or might not replace him. Because that way madness lies madness and misery, actually.

[John Stepek]

And we already did an emergency podcast.

[Aaron Swartz]

We did an emergency podcast yesterday. We did, and that was great fun. We might do more emergency podcasts, actually. I rather enjoyed that.

[John Stepek]

Yeah, yeah, it was quite a laugh.

[Aaron Swartz]

Anyway, this is not an emergency podcast, so that means that we do not have to discuss the of UK politics. So why don't we just talk about the inadequacies of the stock market instead. There's a lot going on in the UK market as well, right, John? And not the bond market, the equity market.

[John Stepek]

I mean, what's really interesting, we've been banging on or discussing for a long time about how UK market undervalued, underappreciated, lots of decent stocks running around, private equity buyers kind of like chewing bits of the market off left, right and center. And we kind of have let that lapse for a little while because there's been so much drama in politics and all the rest of it, but it's still happening. So we've had today, as we're recording, Aspire Healthcare just got a big bid from Tosca Fund. The share price is up something like. I think it was at 220, which is up slightly 70p in the day. So massive jump there. Clearly an undervalued stock in the first place.

[Aaron Swartz]

Well, they're under. Well, it's not necessarily given that they're undervalued when private equity buys them. There's just given that private equity thinks they're undervalued.

[John Stepek]

Yeah, but they think. But it's quite a big premium, put it that way. But. But we've also got. Our colleague Chris Hughes the other day wrote a piece earlier this week entitled Private Equities Liquidation of London Goes on. And this was about Intertek Group, which is looking to accept a proposal from EQT which is not private equity law. They said that on Wednesday and basically Chris says one day there won't be any decent London listed companies left for private equity funds to buy and it's kind of hard to disagree with them. There's also been quite a lot of action in the investment trust space recently. Picton Property has been bought by, I can't remember off the top of my head, but two other property investment trusts. So there's just a lot of stuff going on and I think that our basic thesis that the UK market has an awful lot of potential, an awful lot of undervalued stuff there that's not being appreciated still stands.

[Aaron Swartz]

Well, if we've said it once, we've said it a million times. If you don't buy this cheap stuff, somebody else will and then be available to you any more and won't be available on the market for everyone in the UK to invest in. And the whole wealth problem looms larger, larger.

[John Stepek]

And it's bad news for capital formation, it's bad news for shareholder democracy and all the other things that we talk about, which are, I guess, kind of Small print things, nobody really talks about them, but they're actually quite important because people feel left out.

[Aaron Swartz]

And again, I mean, again, I do not want to veer into politics, not doing that. But if you are a foreign investor thinking to yourself, will I invest in the uk? You look at it and you go, oh, Lordy, look at those energy prices, look at those politicians, look at the chaos. And you don't touch it. But it won't take. Well, I was going to say it won't take much. That's not really true anymore, will it? It'll take quite a lot for the UK to start sending a different kind of signal to the international investing community.

[John Stepek]

Yeah, but it would be easy to do. It just takes a different approach.

[Aaron Swartz]

Simple, not easy, John.

[John Stepek]

Yeah, simple, not easy is probably the better way to put.

[Aaron Swartz]

Anyway, we should talk briefly about the US market, which is. I mean, this is just unstoppable, right? It goes and it goes and it goes. We talked last week in this podcast about signals that things are getting near the top. And you talked about I IPOs and how it was definitely the case that in 2000 you saw this big wave of IPOs coming in before the market finally broke. And we said we would look and see if it was also the case. That has happened in other crises. And you'll never guess what, you will never guess what. It turns out that there is a big rise in the Overall value of IPOs in the 12 month, 18 months or so before each market crash. But I suppose what we would say here is we haven't actually had these IPOs yet. So these bigger IPOs that you were talking about last week and you've been talking about in your newsletter, they're still only mooted, so they haven't been able to upset the supply, demand, balance in the market yet. So maybe if you look at it like that, there's still a way to run for the US market.

[John Stepek]

Well, there could be. I mean, I think what was interesting this week, again, just focusing on the kind of short term. Obviously we get a lot of emails from people and read a lot of research reports. And one thing that I noticed was that this week, and I just got a reminder because we used to talk about interest rates, an awful lot of. And the importance of the US Central bank, specifically the Federal Reserve. And I haven't really talked about that for a while, but this week we got quite bad inflation figures out of

[Aaron Swartz]

the US Unexpectedly high.

[John Stepek]

Yeah, unexpectedly. I mean, again, you always say, well, who.

[Aaron Swartz]

We might stop saying unexpectedly.

[John Stepek]

Yeah, exactly. But it was higher than the market was prepared for. And so the problem there is that that means that again, similar to the uk, the Fed's going from being expected to cut rates at the start of the year and now people are thinking actually it may have to raise them. And of course, one thing that markets don't like is higher interest rates. Higher interest rates also imply a stronger dollar, all else being equal. And a stronger dollar, again, all else being equal, is usually bad for asset prices because everyone needs dollars, so if they get more expensive, there's less money to spend on everything else. A couple of people I follow were saying, actually this might be the thing that it doesn't necessarily mark a top, but it might be the thing that stops the momentum element, the current run, in its tracks. To be fair, it does seem to have had a bit of a den S&P denies that particularly true.

[Aaron Swartz]

But I mean, that's after an absolutely extraordinary run. Right, the numbers here in front of me, you know, the Mag 7 is now up by over 27% in just six weeks.

[John Stepek]

Yes. And the concentration, yeah, the fully semiconductor

[Aaron Swartz]

index up nearly 70% over that same tier period. It's really something.

[John Stepek]

That's another thing that we didn't talk about because the semiconductors, yeah, they're up a lot. But this week again, there was an interesting thing. I thought one of the policymakers in South Korea made noises about how there should be tax on AI that would then fund something akin to not universal basic income, but shielding people from the fallout of the joblessness. And the market fell something like 5% just on that Cosby, the South Korean index. And I mean, the guy then clarified, he didn't mean we're not going to put a windfall tax on AI, he just meant they're going to make so much money that we'll raise more tax. But I think it just gives you an insight into another. Yeah, well, the fragility, but also the fact that actually, you know, a politician might come along and say, actually, yes, this is a problem because you know, you're going to put loads of people out of jobs and even though it's not happening yet, there's nothing to stop them from acting preemptively. And so I think, I mean, obviously tech has always had that slightly uncomfortable relationship with politics, but you can see that there may be something that happens in the future. You know, if, if data is the new oil, then data is also where the new windfall taxes are going to fall.

[Aaron Swartz]

We know all about that here in the uk, don't we?

[John Stepek]

Yeah, it's worth people thinking about at least. I guess.

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[Aaron Swartz]

The other thing that's bothering me is the breadth, you know, that there just aren't. There are a certain number of stocks making new highs over and over and over again, but there are many more that aren't doing that. And on Wednesday, you know, I think 60, 65% of S P 500 stocks actually declined, you know.

[John Stepek]

Yeah.

[Aaron Swartz]

So you got another. You have these new highs, but under the water is really being led by a narrower and narrower and narrower group of stocks. And that should be really worrying for anyone who holds an index, for example.

[John Stepek]

Yeah, I think so. And I think that's. I guess we have to get back to the practicalities here of. Well, because, you know, obviously we talk about this a lot and all of these markets have gone up a lot. So it's not as if there has been a crash yet. And we have discussed it for a long time. But I think that's the point is what they say. It's being aware. So you don't panic when it happens because it will happen at some point, not fairly.

[Aaron Swartz]

Yeah, like the UK's fiscal crisis. It will happen at some point. There's going to quite tell you when, but it feels a little closer than it did.

[John Stepek]

But in the meantime, same with the US market. So I think your point about sticking with equal weighted tracker indexes, if that's the kind of thing that you invest in. I mean it doesn't, they don't do as well as the heavily concentrated ones. But that's kind of like saying you're not doing as well on a tracker as if you just bought Nvidia. Well, okay, yeah, you could put 100% of your money in Nvidia and be much better off.

[Aaron Swartz]

Is that a risk you wanted to take?

[John Stepek]

Exactly, exactly. And I think that's all you can really do. And most people are just feeding money into the market every month anyway. So you are kind of pound cost, dollar cost averaging purely. Unless you've just had a windfall or you're a very wealthy person. So for most people trying to stay calm, revisit your portfolio maybe once every six months to make sure that you aren't too exposed to something you don't want to be too exposed to and just kind of get on with it. Other than that.

[Aaron Swartz]

World's most sensible man, very boring. But listen, listen, I want to counter the boringness of what John has just said by saying that, and this is for our British listeners, that there's been a change to the premium bonds prize fund rate.

[John Stepek]

Right.

[Aaron Swartz]

And this is exciting. So NSNI National Savings and Investment allow you to buy in the UK premium bonds. You get each cost pound, you get your pound back whenever you like, but also your bonds are drawn and you can win prizes. And the overall yield on these bonds is generally not particularly high, but it's very exciting when you win. Minimum prize is 25 pounds. Maximum is still a million, isn't it?

[John Stepek]

A million, yeah.

[Aaron Swartz]

The odds of winning have been 23,000 to 1. That's fine next to a lottery. Right, that's going down to 22,001. The prize pot is going up quite a lot. There are now going to be 12 additional 100,000 pound prizes, 24 more 50,000 pound prizes and an extra 49 25,000 pound prizes and fewer of the little ones with 25 pound prizes. So, you know, if you think to yourself quite want to be sure of getting my capital back, perhaps I'll just do something that is a bit more fun. I'm pro premium bonds. I've got a lot of premium bonds. I know it's not the most financially efficient thing in the world but I was getting very excited.

[John Stepek]

My tax advantaged as well.

[Aaron Swartz]

Oh yes, absolutely no tax to pay on these because you're gambling, I guess. Yeah, yeah.

[John Stepek]

And also is it not just because basically they're just gelts but with a slightly different varnish on them. But like I said, there'd get always

[Aaron Swartz]

been no yield anyway, I'm very pro. So the total number of prizes is increasing significantly and the proportion of 25 pound prizes, which is one that I always won when I don't have ever won more than pound 25 has fallen from 47% of all prizes to 37%. So my chance of winning more than 25 quid has just risen significantly and when I do win more than 25 quid, I am coming back to tell you I don't know if you can fiddle those numbers, but premium bond people, if you can fiddle the numbers, fiddle the numbers.

[John Stepek]

See, I actually think this is something we should do. If we ever get to talking about financial history again on the podcast, then

[Aaron Swartz]

I'm hoping we're going to be allowed to do that really soon.

[John Stepek]

Yes, I think that would be good. But I am surprised that more countries and I wonder if we will see more of this as more countries get into difficulties with our spending. But these lottery style debt issuance. Because the whole point is basically you get an excitement premium so your cost of capital as a country goes down because people want to gamble so you can raise the Money, I mean, it strikes me as a much more sensible

[Aaron Swartz]

way to raise money in terms of shelter, democracy. The other day. Right. That'd be really great. If it's a perk. As a perk. A couple of shares were pulled out of a hat, digitally pulled out of a hat every year. And you got a nice hamper or a box of champagne or free car insurance, something fun like that. You know, the lottery concept is a great one and hugely underused by governments, I would say. We love to gamble. Help us do it.

[John Stepek]

I do think the other thing, when you were saying about them getting rid of the smaller prizes there, that's a good idea too, because the idea that, you know, I may win, yeah, I may win a million, but I may win 25 quid. If it's. You might win a million or 100 grand and people don't then do the odds. If you see what I mean?

[Aaron Swartz]

If you win a million, they telephone you. If someone telephoned me and told me I'd won a million quid on premium bonds, I think I'd just assume it was a scam.

[John Stepek]

Definitely a scam. Definitely scam. No.

[Aaron Swartz]

Well, that's another problem. We're not going to worry about that now anyway, lots to worry about. But if you have premium bonds, you might win 50 quid. Good luck with that. Thanks for listening to this week's Marantalks Money Debrief. If you like our show, rate, review and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to follow me and John on X or Twitter aaronsw and johnstepec. This episode was produced by Sama Saadi. Production support and sound designed by Moses Andam. Questions and comments on this show and all our shows are all always welcome. Our show email is merrymoneylumberg.net.

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