IdaTech, an Oregon fuel-cell company will bypass the New York stock markets, Nasdaq and the NYSE, and list on the London Stock Exchange. The flotation is valued at £100m ($195m).

Observers believe this is another sign that America’s draconian Sarbanes-Oxley legislation is proving a turn-off for U.S. firms.

IdaTech manufactures environmentally friendly generators for industry and for recreational use. Owner Investec, with 96 percent of the stock, is selling between 50 and 60 percent of its holdings.

With Robert Greifeld identifying three key areas of interest for Nasdaq in the next year, a renewed bid for the London Stock Exchange seems likely. The areas are :

* Taking market share from NYSE Group.
* Fending off BATS, a new electronic stock market.
* Forging mergers and acquisitions.

It is then anticipated that Nasdaq will make a new attempt to take over the LSE before the end of the third quarter of next year.

The LSE has declined to comment on Nasdaq’s position. In return, it ratcheted up takeover rumours by claiming that it’s looking at its own “strategic alternatives”.

The Times (London) reports :

The New York market has been linked to takeover talks with both the Philadelphia Stock Exchange and the Nordic OMX market in the past week. It is understood that the talks with Philadelphia are advancing well and that Nasdaq insiders expect a takeover to be sealed within six months.

Talks with OMX, which has also tried and failed to take over the London exchange, are at a much earlier stage, but both potential deals are part of a wider strategy to boost Nasdaq’s balance sheet and improve its product offering, so that its next bid for the LSE will be more difficult to reject.

A Nasdaq insider commented, “The long-term objective is still London. This is a game of chess and LSE is the king.”

We await the new LSE moves with great interest.

The new edition of New York Magazine asks, is New York falling behind London?

As I wrote over in Syntagma, “Certainly the City — London’s world-class financial centre — is much more vibrant than Wall Street, which is suffering the dead hand of Sarbanes-Oxley regulation. The light-touch, principle-based system of the Square Mile knocks spots off New York’s draconian regime. This, almost alone, allowed the London Stock Exchange to survive a ferocious takeover bid from New York’s Nasdaq recently, simply by pointing out to shareholders that it was in a much better financial position than the American exchange. That kind of insouciance can’t be bought, only built. Very English.”

The magazine also asks, Are we no longer the world’s financial capital?

In today’s Times Business, Irwin Stelzer muses about Wall Street’s apparent loss of confidence in its future :

“New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, all a twitter about Wall Street’s loss of market share to the City of London, hops over to meet financial regulators in the City. SEC chairman Chris Cox tells me he is studying FSA chairman Callum McCarthy’s use of light-handed, principles-based rather than rules-based regulation to control City types who might be overly zealous in their pursuit of bonuses.

“… Bloomberg, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and others blame Wall Street’s declining market share on the burdens placed on corporate boards by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Never mind that investment bankers’ fees are higher in America …”

However, not a lot may come of this, Stelzer thinks :

“Despite pressures coming from Messrs Bloomberg and Paulson, Hillary Clinton and others, congress and the SEC are unlikely to do more than make a slight move in the direction of UK-style, principles-based financial regulation.”

No wonder London is feeling fairly confident about its future as a world financial centre when, all around, others are losing their heads.