If CANZUK (Canada-Australia-New Zealand-UK) ever became a united global entity to stem their independent relative decline internationally, and to jointly preserve their global interests vis-a-vis the rising great powers in the world, they wouldn't need to create and harmonize a new stock exchange to pool their capital - they've already got one. It's called the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), and as it turns out, the London AIM exchange is dominated by dozens and dozens of listed Canadian and Australian companies, whose combined market capitalisation equals nearly 50% of the now $50 billion value (2,200 companies, of which 270 are “foreign”) of the fast growing stock exchange. How ever is this possible, you ask?Lack of red tape, mostly. Continental Europe and the United States have become unfriendly places for listed public companies to raise capital. Since its inception in 1995, AIM has enjoyed success after success due to its low-regulatory burden, especially in relation to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposes regulatory costs on companies listed in the US, including those without any operations. Flexibility is provided by less regulation and no requirements for capitalisation or number of shares issued. The AIM as a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange, allows smaller companies to float shares with a more flexible regulatory system than is applicable to its own Main Market. Some companies have since moved on to join the Main Market, although in the last few years, significantly more companies transferred from the Main Market to AIM (AIM has significant tax advantages for investors, as well as less regulatory burden for the companies themselves). In 2005, 40 companies moved directly from the Main Market to AIM, while only 2 companies moved from AIM to the Main Market.
Canada and Australia are powerful resource economies, and as such need access to outside capital to finance their continuing strong growth. The UK is increasingly becoming the source of that investment - hence the startling growth of AIM over recent years, which shows no signs of letting up.