ABBs-Block Trades

The Finnish financial services group is focusing on its insurance assets following pressure from activist hedge fund Elliot International

Europe's equity capital markets bankers are braced for a frenzy of deals over the coming weeks and months

FastBall Holdings, the investor consortium led by KKR & Co, has reduced its stake in Flutter Entertainment by almost a third, raising £406m, after the Irish bookmaker reported strong six month results on Tuesday.

An undisclosed pre-IPO shareholder in Auto1 Group has sold €73m of shares after the German online car marketplace reported record quarterly earnings on Monday.

A group of pre-IPO shareholders have completed the first selldown of stock in Darktrace, the UK cyber security company, since its flotation on the London Stock Exchange at the end of April.

A rare block trade has broken the quiet in Europe’s equity capital markets, as a former director of Dr Martens, the boot maker, sold a chunk of shares in the first block sale since its IPO in January.

Mainland-based Xinte Energy Co raised HK$1.03bn ($132m) on Wednesday by selling a block of new H-shares, its debut equity issue.

TechnipFMC, the French-US energy technologies group, executed on Thursday night its second block sale of shares in Technip Energies, the engineering and construction subsidiary it span off in February. Despite the holiday season, the parent achieved a fractionally higher price than in the last trade and a significantly tighter discount.

Ascential, the UK media and events company, has completed a £154m capital raising to strengthen its balance sheet so that it can take advantage of new M&A opportunities.