Now spread good IPO news to other British winners

IF YOU’RE a patriot, and I hope you are, you should be delighted London has won over the founders of Trustpilot to float on our stock market.

The more tech firms choose Britain for their IPOs, the more investor expertise will grow here and the easier they’ll find it to achieve Silicon Valley valuations.

That, in turn, means more skilled City jobs to boost the UK economy post-Brexit.

This paper has long called for our markets to be made more attractive for tech entrepreneurs. Hopefully there’ll be some news on that in Wednesday’s Budget.

Amid all the hype around tech stocks, though, it’s as important for investors not to overlook other sectors who have been left behind.

There are many great companies on the UK market which are undervalued and falling prey to foreign bargain hunters. Some

£20 billion of them have been sold abroad since January 1.

They’re being sold because the buyers can see Brexit worries have made them too cheap. The bargain-hunters — largely private equity firms — also recognise you don’t have to be a tech unicorn to have good prospects.

Only today, we saw knockout numbers or optimism from

Reach, Halfords, Speedy Hire, Aggreko and Vertu Motors.

I’ve no idea which, if any, will get takeover bids. But shareholders of all decent companies generating old-fashioned stuff like profit and cashflow should think what they’re throwing away when they accept foreign bidders’ cash now.

If market moods turn and favour reliable, cash-generating stocks, they may regret it when all they’ve got left is Moonpig and Trustpilot.