Key takeaways

  • The Financial Times reports the Superdrug owner is weighing a delay to a planned London IPO once targeted for autumn 2026.
  • AS Watson is the world’s largest health-and-beauty retailer by store count, controlled by Li Ka-shing’s CK Hutchison, with Temasek holding a minority stake.
  • A dual London and Hong Kong listing had been discussed at a reported valuation of around US$30bn, though such figures remain unconfirmed by the company.
  • London’s IPO market has been weak, with issuers repeatedly choosing New York and several firms leaving the exchange.
  • The FCA’s July 2024 listing-rule overhaul aimed to make London more competitive, but sentiment, not rules, is the harder problem.

The company that puts Superdrug on the British high street may not, after all, be ringing the bell in the City this autumn. According to the Financial Times, AS Watson—the sprawling Hong Kong-based health-and-beauty empire that owns Superdrug and Savers in the UK—is considering delaying a planned London listing that had been pencilled in for the second half of 2026. For a market that has spent two years hunting for a marquee flotation to prove it can still attract the world’s biggest names, the report lands as an unwelcome piece of news, even if nothing has been decided.

This article treats that reported delay as exactly that: a report. The FT has said AS Watson is weighing its options, and the potential postponement should be read as reporting rather than as a confirmed corporate decision. The company’s parent has, on the record, declined to comment. What can be established with confidence is the backdrop—who AS Watson is, why a listing has been talked about for more than a decade, and why London has struggled to convert ambition into actual initial public offerings. That context is where the real story lies.

What the Financial Times reported

The Financial Times, in coverage of the IPO market, reported that AS Watson is considering pushing back a planned flotation that had been aimed at a dual listing in London and Hong Kong this autumn. The reporting indicated that the deliberation is linked to possible regulatory and other complications in Asia, and that a delay could slip the transaction into 2027. The FT noted that the group has been pursuing asset sales—including the French perfume chain Marionnaud—and that Hong Kong listing regulators could treat such a disposal as a “material change” that would require listing materials to be refiled, complicating the timetable.

The reporting also referenced a valuation discussed in market circles of around US$30bn, with a fundraising in the region of US$2bn. These figures should be treated with caution. They have circulated in press coverage rather than in any prospectus or formal announcement, and AS Watson has not confirmed them. Where this article refers to a “roughly US$30bn” valuation, it is repeating what has been reported, not asserting a verified number. CK Hutchison, the controlling shareholder, declined to comment on the FT’s report.

In short: a delay is under consideration, according to the FT; it has not been announced; and the precise economics remain unconfirmed. Everything that follows is designed to help readers understand why this particular company, and this particular moment, matters.

Who AS Watson and Superdrug actually are

AS Watson is not a household name in Britain, but its shops are. The group describes itself as the world’s largest international health-and-beauty retailer, operating more than 16,500 stores across roughly 28 markets in Asia and Europe and employing well over 100,000 people. Its brand portfolio is a tour of European and Asian high streets: Watsons across Asia, Kruidvat and Trekpleister in the Benelux countries, ICI Paris XL and Marionnaud in continental perfumery, Rossmann in central Europe, and in the UK, Superdrug, Savers and The Perfume Shop.

Superdrug is the British face of that empire. Founded in 1964, with its first store opening in Putney, south-west London, in 1966, it grew into the country’s second-largest health-and-beauty retailer behind Boots. It operates close to 900 stores across the UK and Ireland, employs more than 14,000 people, and runs pharmacies with consultation rooms in over 200 of its shops, alongside nurse clinics offering health checks and vaccinations. Superdrug joined the AS Watson group in November 2002. For the year covering 2024 it reported revenue of around £1.6bn and a pre-tax profit of roughly £137m—a reminder that, whatever happens with a listing thousands of miles away, this is a substantial and profitable British retail business.

Above AS Watson sits one of the world’s best-known corporate dynasties. The group is controlled by CK Hutchison Holdings, the conglomerate associated with the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, which holds the large majority of the business. Singapore’s state investment company, Temasek, holds a minority stake it acquired in 2014. That ownership structure matters, because it shapes both the motive for a listing—giving long-standing shareholders a route to realise value—and the complexity of executing one across multiple jurisdictions.

A listing more than a decade in the making

The idea of floating AS Watson is not new. More than a decade ago, in 2013 and into 2014, Li Ka-shing’s group explored a public listing of the retail arm. Banks were appointed and preparations advanced. In the event, the flotation was shelved. Rather than take the business public, the group sold a minority stake to Temasek in a transaction that valued the retailer in the tens of billions of dollars and delivered a large cash injection without the scrutiny and timing risk of an IPO.

That history is instructive. It shows a controlling shareholder that has long viewed a listing as one option among several—including private stake sales and asset disposals—for crystallising the value of its retail crown jewel. It also shows a group that has been willing to walk away from a listing when conditions were not right. A reported willingness to consider a delay in 2026, on that reading, is entirely in character. It is the behaviour of an owner that treats the public markets as a tool to be used on its own terms, not a deadline to be met.

For London, though, the on-off history is double-edged. The prospect of finally landing a business of AS Watson’s scale has been dangled before the City more than once. Each time expectations rise and then recede, it reinforces a narrative that the London Stock Exchange is chasing deals it cannot reliably close.

London’s IPO drought

The reason a single reported deliberation attracts this much attention is that London can ill afford another setback. The London new-issues market has endured a prolonged drought. Where the exchange once competed at the very top table for global listings, recent years have seen a thin pipeline, subdued valuations and a steady drift of companies towards New York.

The numbers tell the story. Analysis of the market points to a first quarter of 2026 with only a couple of new listings of any note—a currency-trading platform that raised a single-digit-millions sum on the main market, and a small mining float on AIM. That followed a 2025 that was, by recent standards, comparatively encouraging: advisers described it as the strongest year for London listings since 2021, helped by a late flurry that included the tinned-food group Princes and the lender Shawbrook. “Encouraging by recent standards” is, however, a low bar, and 2026 opened weakly, with advisers pointing to Middle East geopolitical volatility and a wobble in technology and AI valuations as reasons issuers held back.

Just as damaging as the shortage of arrivals has been the pattern of departures. Over roughly a decade, London has seen a large net loss of listed companies, thinned by takeovers and by a run of high-profile decisions to list or move elsewhere. The payments group Wise pursued a US listing; the gambling group Flutter Entertainment shifted its primary listing to New York while stepping back from London; building-materials giant CRH moved its main listing across the Atlantic; and the fast-fashion group Shein, at various points linked with a London float, became a symbol of the City’s difficulty in landing a blockbuster. Each individual case has its own logic, but collectively they feed a perception—fair or not—that ambitious companies see deeper pools of capital, higher valuations and more receptive investors in the United States.

Against that backdrop, a business of AS Watson’s size choosing London for even part of a dual listing would have been a genuine coup. A reported wobble, therefore, stings more than the underlying facts alone might warrant.

The listing-rule reforms meant to fix this

British policymakers are not blind to the problem, and they have acted. In July 2024, the Financial Conduct Authority introduced the most significant overhaul of the UK’s listing regime in more than three decades. The reforms, which came into force on 29 July 2024, scrapped the long-standing split between “premium” and “standard” listings and replaced it with a single category for commercial companies, simplifying eligibility and stripping out some of the requirements that issuers had complained made London cumbersome relative to rivals.

The changes moved the regime towards a more disclosure-based model—the philosophy being that investors should be given the information to make their own judgements, rather than have the regulator prescribe outcomes in advance. Mandatory shareholder votes on significant transactions and related-party deals were removed, giving management more freedom to act at speed, and the rules were made more accommodating of dual-class share structures that allow founders to retain control after listing. The FCA framed the reforms as a deliberate rebalancing of risk in favour of growth. Sarah Pritchard, an FCA executive director, said a thriving capital market is “vital in delivering investment to growing companies,” while stressing that “vital protections” for investors were retained.

The reforms addressed a real weakness. But rules are only part of the equation. A company weighing London against Hong Kong or New York is thinking about valuation, liquidity, the depth of specialist investors in its sector and the currency and index in which it wants to trade—as much as about the rulebook. Making the paperwork easier does not, by itself, change where global money wants to buy shares. That is the harder, slower problem the reforms cannot solve on their own.

Why issuers hesitate

If the AS Watson timetable does slip, the reported reasons are worth separating from the broader mood. The FT has linked the deliberation primarily to regulatory and structural complications in Asia—including the possibility that an asset sale such as Marionnaud could be deemed a material change by Hong Kong regulators, forcing listing documents to be reworked. That is a company-specific, execution issue. It is not, on the face of it, a verdict on London.

But issuers everywhere delay for a familiar set of reasons, and several apply here. Market volatility is the classic trigger: no board wants to price a landmark deal into a falling or jittery market and watch the shares sag on debut. Valuation gaps are another—if buyers will only pay materially less than sellers believe the business is worth, waiting can be rational. Complexity is a third, and a dual listing across two very different regulatory regimes, executed while the group is simultaneously reshaping its portfolio through disposals, is genuinely complex. Add a controlling shareholder with the financial strength to wait, and no pressing need to raise cash, and patience becomes the path of least resistance.

None of that is unique to London. It is, however, a reminder that the biggest deals are also the most exposed to these frictions, which is precisely why they are so hard to land.

What a delay would mean for the City and investors

For the London Stock Exchange, the loss—or postponement—of a listing of this scale would be a reputational blow more than a financial one. A single flotation, however large, does not remake a market. But symbolism matters in capital markets, where confidence is self-reinforcing. A high-profile arrival can signal that the City is open for business and encourage others in the pipeline to press ahead; a high-profile no-show does the opposite, handing ammunition to those who argue the reform effort has not yet shifted the dial.

For investors, the immediate consequences are limited. AS Watson is not yet listed, so there are no public shareholders to bruise. UK retail investors would simply lose, or have deferred, a chance to buy into a large, cash-generative international retailer. For the ecosystem of advisers, brokers and asset managers that depends on a steady flow of new issues, another slipped mega-deal means thinner fee income and a longer wait for the pipeline to clear. And for policymakers who have staked credibility on reviving London as a listings venue, it is an uncomfortable data point—one they will argue is about Asian deal mechanics rather than British competitiveness, a distinction that is real but unlikely to soften the headlines.

Opportunities, challenges and material risks

The opportunities in an eventual AS Watson listing are clear enough. It is a profitable, defensive, cash-generative business with exposure to both mature European markets and faster-growing Asian consumer demand—the kind of resilient retailer that can appeal across the cycle. A London leg to a dual listing would give UK and European institutions direct access to a name whose products they already know, and would offer the exchange a genuine flagship. The FCA’s streamlined regime, meanwhile, means the mechanics of listing in London are more straightforward than they were even two years ago.

The challenges are equally clear. Executing a dual listing across London and Hong Kong is demanding, and doing so while carving out and selling assets multiplies the moving parts. Health-and-beauty retail, though defensive, is fiercely competitive and exposed to consumer sentiment, discounting and the relentless shift online. And a roughly US$30bn valuation—if that is indeed the ambition—sets a high bar that markets would need to endorse.

The material risks deserve plain statement. First, timing risk: a delayed deal may reappear into a stronger or weaker market, and the price could differ substantially from anything discussed today. Second, structural risk: the reported Asian regulatory complications could recur or worsen, and portfolio changes could reset the clock again. Third, execution risk on the London side specifically—if the group ultimately chose to list only in Hong Kong, or to sell down through a private transaction as it did in 2014, London could be bypassed entirely. Fourth, and most fundamental, is the unverified nature of much of the financial detail: readers should not anchor to a US$30bn figure that no company document has confirmed.

The counterarguments

It would be easy to over-read this report, and there are solid counterarguments to the gloom. The first is simply that a considered delay is not a cancellation. Sequencing a complex, multi-jurisdiction listing sensibly is what competent advisers are paid to do, and getting the timing right can be the difference between a strong debut and a weak one. A group that waits for the right window is behaving prudently, not fleeing London.

The second is that the reported reasons are Asian and structural, not a rejection of the UK. If the sticking points are Hong Kong regulatory treatment and asset disposals, that says little about London’s own attractiveness. The third is that London’s 2025 was, by recent standards, its best year for listings since 2021, and advisers report a pipeline that is building rather than collapsing—“continue progressing your IPO readiness so you can move quickly once windows open,” as one senior IPO adviser put it. On that view, the market is convalescing, not relapsing.

And the fourth is perspective. AS Watson’s on-off relationship with public markets stretches back more than a decade and predates the current debate about London’s decline. Reading a thirteen-year corporate saga primarily as a referendum on the City in 2026 risks mistaking a company’s own rhythm for a national verdict.

What happens next

The immediate next step is clarity from the company itself. Until AS Watson or CK Hutchison confirms a timetable—or the absence of one—the position rests on the FT’s reporting and should be described that way. Watch for three things. First, progress on the reported asset sales, particularly Marionnaud, since the treatment of any disposal by Hong Kong regulators appears central to the timing. Second, the state of global equity markets through the autumn: a calmer backdrop would make a late-2026 launch more plausible, while renewed volatility would strengthen the case for waiting into 2027. Third, any signal on structure—specifically whether a London leg survives, or whether the group leans towards a Hong Kong-only listing or another private transaction.

For the wider market, the more meaningful test is not this single deal but the cumulative flow of new issues over the coming year, and whether the FCA’s reforms and other measures under discussion begin to translate into a fuller pipeline. One delayed flotation, however large, will not settle the argument about London’s future either way.

Conclusion

The reported possibility that the Superdrug owner might delay its London IPO is a genuine story, but it is a narrower one than the headlines can suggest. AS Watson is a formidable, profitable retailer with a controlling shareholder that has long treated public listing as an option to be exercised on its own terms—and that has walked away before. The reasons cited for a possible delay are rooted in Asian deal mechanics rather than in a verdict on the City. Yet the episode still stings, precisely because London needs a win, and the reforms of 2024 have not yet delivered the flood of flagship listings their architects hoped for. Whether this proves a warning sign or merely a pause will depend less on one Hong Kong conglomerate’s timetable than on whether the UK can rebuild the confidence that turns willing issuers into completed deals.