The boss of the hotel giant behind the Holiday Inn has claimed London is ‘not a very attractive place’ for firms to list shares.

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) chief executive Keith Barr said the UK stock market ‘hasn’t been on its front foot for a little while’ and urged action to prevent an exodus. 

The comments came as SoftBank, the Japanese owner of Cambridge chip designer Arm, was set to list in New York rather than London in a major setback for the City.

Warning: InterContinental boss Keith Barr (pictured) said the UK stock market 'hasn't been on its front foot for a little while' and urged authorities to take action to prevent an exodus of firms

Warning: InterContinental boss Keith Barr (pictured) said the UK stock market 'hasn't been on its front foot for a little while' and urged authorities to take action to prevent an exodus of firms

Warning: InterContinental boss Keith Barr (pictured) said the UK stock market ‘hasn’t been on its front foot for a little while’ and urged authorities to take action to prevent an exodus of firms

Other big names have plans to either ditch existing London listings or embark on secondary listings in New York. 

IHG, which owns the Crowne Plaza and Holiday Inn brands, is worth more than £9billion and is a member of the FTSE 100. But it also has a secondary listing in New York.

When IHG went public, Barr told the Financial Times there was ‘probably no reason to even think about listing in the US for our primary listing because the FTSE was the FTSE and was incredibly liquid’.

But ‘things have changed’ and he urged the Square Mile to ‘find its way back’ by luring investment from pension and insurance funds and saying Government rules should be eased to compete with the US.

CRH, the world’s largest building materials company, worth almost £30billion, last month said it was leaving the London market and would relist in New York.

Betting giant Flutter is among those looking at a secondary listing in New York.

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This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk

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