UK

Hipgnosis Songs Fund, the London-listed investment fund focused on music royalties, is embarking on yet another share sale to finance its bulging pipeline of acquisitions.

JD Wetherspoon, the UK pub chain, tapped equity investors for £93.7m ($128m) on Tuesday to help see it through the country’s third Covid-19 lockdown. The company is likely to be the first of a number of issuers that seek to raise primary equity capital in the next few months in order to manage the disruption, according to senior equity market sources.

The UK Debt Management Office launched a new 25 year line on Tuesday, raising £6.5bn. The DMO also published the minutes of its call with investors and Gilt-edged Market Makers on Monday, revealing strong appetite for inflation-linked products.

Levels of asset encumbrance increased sharply in the first half of 2020, the European Banking Authority said in a report this week. It warned that roughly half of the assets eligible as collateral for central bank funding schemes are now encumbered.

Motability Operations Group, the UK non-profit company that leases cars to disabled people, will only issue social bonds in future, after successfully using the format for the first time last week.

Moonpig, the online greetings card company, has started its IPO process with a boost, announcing two big cornerstone orders at the beginning of investor education. Meanwhle, Dr Martens, the UK bootmaker, has published its intention to float on the London Stock Exchange without cornerstones, but sources say that either cornerstones or anchors are a strong possibility on that deal.

Immunocore, the UK biotech company, has filed for an IPO on the Nasdaq in New York following a $75m series ‘C’ funding round which concluded last week.

Aedifica, a Belgium-based healthcare property investment company, has launched a US private placement, according to market sources.

Supreme plc, the Manchester-based maker of vaping liquids for e-cigarettes, is preparing to go public on London’s alternative investment market (AIM).

Two more trades on Thursday night crowned off a busy week for block trading in London, fuelled by a rally of UK equities since the start of the year after the country secured a trade deal with the European Union at the end of 2020.

Austrian paper and packaging firm Mayr-Melnhof Karton, called MM Karton for short, has launched a Schuldscheine, with an initial target of €300m.

Investors flocked to the first block trade in The Hut Group (THG), the UK e-commerce company that was listed on the London Stock Exchange in September, in an overnight trade on Wednesday evening.