The Financial Times publishes an article on Lion Finance Group as the best-performing financial group in the UK

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The Financial Times publishes an article on Lion Finance Group as the best-performing financial group in the UK

27.05.2026.18:07

The Financial Times has published an article on Lion Finance Group, describing it as one of the best-performing players in the UK banking sector. FT also highlights the company’s strong share performance, technological efficiency, and regional expansion strategy. It notes that Lion Finance’s results are among the strongest across Europe. The publication places particular emphasis on the bank’s low cost-to-income ratio, high profitability, and its exposure to the fast-growing economies of Georgia and Armenia. The article also discusses the company’s plans to acquire new banks in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

,,Most London-listed banks had a good run in the past few years, but the best performer of all is not to be found on any UK high street. Shares in Lion Finance, a lender based in the country of Georgia, have risen 800 per cent since 2021, beating every bank on the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 and muscling its way this year into the FTSE 100.

What was once called Bank of Georgia listed in London in 2006, the first company from the Transcaucasian nation to do so. It expanded into neighbouring Armenia in 2024 by buying Ameriabank for $304mn. Since joining the FTSE 250 in 2012, Lion has beaten the total shareholder returns of that benchmark almost tenfold.

In one respect, it is a classic emerging markets play: a bet on two fast-growing but potentially volatile economies. The IMF expects 2026 GDP growth of more than 5 per cent in each country, while Lion expects it to be stronger still despite disruption caused by the war in Iran. That compares with the 1 per cent, give or take, that the IMF forecasts for the EU and the UK.

If that were the whole investment case, there are cheaper options around. There’s even another Georgian lender: TBC Bank. But Lion is unusually efficient, partly because of heavy tech investment. Last year’s 36 per cent cost-to-income ratio and 28 per cent return on equity for the first quarter compare with European averages of about 50 per cent and 11 per cent, based on data from the European Banking Authority.

Chief executive Archil Gachechiladze is seeking to replicate the formula by buying stable but stuffy incumbents in other parts of eastern Europe or central Asia. Ameriabank was the test case. Last year, Lion missed out in a fight for HSBC’s Maltese business; Blackstone’s Baltic lender Luminor is larger but with the sort of location that might appeal.

While many investors like the quirks of emerging market and frontier market stocks — and some have been performing particularly well lately — they also like diversification. Banks focused on central and eastern Europe trade at an average of nine times next year’s earnings, according to Citigroup data, compared with six times for Lion.

The challenge is that building banks that cross borders is hard. Even JPMorgan Chase, the world’s largest bank by market value, ran into hurdles trying to expand its retail operation into Germany. Seen from London, frontier markets may appear similar; up close they are liable to be starkly different along regulatory, cultural and political lines.

If Lion succeeds, one beneficiary would be the London Stock Exchange. In 2006, the UK capital was the default venue for a company from Europe’s fringes; these days, it struggles to attract new entrants from anywhere. A booming London stock that has nothing to do with London can only help", - FT.

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