Yankee Doodle went to L ondon: A nglo‐ A merican breweries and the L ondon securities market, 1888–92

The enthusiasm of B ritish portfolio investors for US industry in the late 1880s has been seen as evidence of the liberalism of the L ondon S tock E xchange and the conservatism of the N ew Y ork S tock E xchange. B ased on a study of A nglo‐ A merican brewing issues on the L ondon market between 1888 and 1892, in this article it is argued that such an interpretation cannot be sustained. F or these issues, securing access to the L ondon market proved more demanding than accounts of its liberalism would lead us to expect: in fact, A nglo‐ A merican brewing companies submitted to strictures from L ondon that were more constraining than those of the N ew Y ork market. P romoters accepted L ondon's constraints to take advantage of the high valuations assigned to A nglo‐ A merican brewing securities there, which reflected the city's success in building demand based on financial machinery that did not exist in N ew Y ork. T hat machinery included underwriting syndicates, accounting standards, and the L ondon S tock E xchange's listing rules, although, from this perspective, it was the rigour of the exchange's rules that was important. S till, vetting securities for quotation was not the same as for investment, as the disappointing performance of the A nglo‐ A merican brewing securities soon revealed.