The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has raised only as much money in initial public offerings (IPOs) so far this year as Kazakhstan as it drops in global rankings. London’s main market is in joint-21st position for money raised by new floats in the first four months of the year, according to analysis by Mergermarket. There has been only one IPO, raising just £95m ($119m), which was Air Astana’s joint float between London and Kazakhstan. The single float means that London’s centuries-old stock exchange has raised only as much as the 30-year-old exchanges in Kazakhstan’s Astana and Almaty – a country which is the world’s 54th-largest economy. It is behind other much smaller exchanges, including Istanbul, which has raised £486m, Athens at £638m, and Oslo, which has had one float raising £111m. In total, approximately 370 IPOs have raised $32.3bn in the first four months of the year. The London market has been hit with a string of companies opting to list abroad in places such as New York. Mining giant Glencore last year chose to spin off and list its coal business in New York rather than London, while its secondary listings went to Toronto and Johannesburg. Last...