Long-Term Stock Exchange promotes long-term listing model for U.S. public companies

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Highlights

Publicly traded U.S. companies dropped from a 1996 peak of 7,322 to just over 3,700, despite real GDP and population growth.
Average time from company founding to IPO extended from 4.6 years (1990–2001) to 10 years (2001–2015), favoring private-market investors over retail participants.
McKinsey found long-term-oriented public companies saw revenue grow 47%, earnings 36%, and R&D spending 50% more than industry averages (2001–2014), supporting LTSE’s strategy.

Public market pressures and LTSE's positioning

As outlined by Long-Term Stock Exchange, the number of publicly traded U.S. companies peaks at 7,322 in 1996 and now stands at just over 3,700, even as the U.S. population rises more than 20% and real GDP more than doubles over the same period.

The text argues that pressure to meet quarterly targets is a key factor behind the decline in public listings. It says short-term investors, while still a minority of shareholders, exert outsized influence on market attention and company behavior. Citing survey findings, it says 80% of CFOs would forgo long-term value creation efforts such as research and development to avoid missing quarterly targets, while 85% of respondents in an FCLT Global survey say pressure on senior executives to deliver short-term results increases over the past five years.

The article also links shorter CEO tenure and a long decline in the lifespan of public companies to a stronger focus on immediate performance. It says current market structures, including trading models centered on moment-to-moment stock price moves, compensation tied to short-term results and financial engineering aimed at quarterly profits, reinforce incentives that can work against longer-term planning.

IPO delays and implications for investors

The piece says these conditions, together with greater availability of private capital, lead many companies to stay private longer and delay their market debut. It cites average time-to-IPO data of 4.6 years between 1990 and 2001, compared with 10 years from 2001 to 2015.

That shift gives investors with private-market access an advantage in both returns and company selection, while retail investors saving for households and retirement are less able to participate in faster-growing parts of the economy. The article presents this as a structural issue for capital access in U.S. markets.

To support the case for a longer-term approach, the text cites a McKinsey study saying that between 2001 and 2014, revenue at long-term-oriented companies grows 47% more than industry averages, earnings grows 36% more and spending on research and development is 50% higher on average. LTSE says its mission is to make that approach more workable in public markets by offering listing standards designed for companies focused on enduring value and long-term profit.

Wayve’s $85 million employee share tender on LSEG’s Pisces platform highlighted how intermittent trading can provide liquidity for staff and early investors without a full IPO. Our earlier coverage explained that UK policymakers and exchange officials are backing Pisces as a way to strengthen domestic capital markets and keep high-growth companies tied more closely to London as they stay private longer.

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