The Bank of France has published an assessment of the structural gap between European Union and U.S. equity markets, calling for action under the Savings and Investments Union to strengthen the EU financing continuum, consolidate market infrastructure and further ease IPO requirements. It finds that regulatory differences explain little of the gap and that the perceived advantages of U.S. listings are partly overstated. The United States recorded 374 IPOs in 2025, compared with 55 in the EU, while the number of IPOs by European companies fell about 60% between 2017 and 2025. In the first three quarters of 2025, U.S. markets raised USD 49.6 billion against USD 10.8 billion in the EU, and U.S. listed companies were valued 3.32 times higher on average than European peers. However, technology mega-caps distort valuation and liquidity comparisons, while only 2% of listed European companies transferred their primary listing to the United States over the past decade. U.S. IPOs also take longer and cost nearly 50% more than listings on Euronext. The article advocates pan-European investment funds to support innovative companies from private financing through public markets. It also supports consolidating the EU’s fragmented trading and post-trade infrastructure, which comprises 34 exchanges, 33 central securities depositories and 20 central counterparties. Building on the EU Listing Act and French IPO reforms, it identifies scope for further measures, including temporary regulatory relief for newly listed scale-ups, broader prospectus exemptions for secondary offerings and more targeted disclosure requirements.

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