UK

Emergency financing to combat the effects of the coronavirus pandemic have dominated UK equity capital markets since the country went into lockdown on March 23. But investors still have the capacity to fund companies raising growth capital although many issuers are said to be waiting for clarity on the path out of lockdown from the government expected next week.

The UK Debt Management Office has chosen the banks to lead what will be the first of an unprecedented two syndicated offerings in a single calendar month as it prepares to finance a substantial increase in its borrowing requirements.

UK pub chain JD Wetherspoon has sold £141m of fresh equity to keep itself afloat until the UK government lifts the country’s lockdown, which led to the closure of all pubs.

Equities have made a stirring recovery since the record coronavirus sell-off in March. Corporates, looking to raise cash by any means necessary to survive the crisis and lower their risk, have taken advantage of the uplift, selling non-core equity holdings. Now, more are being urged to get in on the trade while it lasts, as there are fears that stock markets will plummet again if lockdowns or infections worsen with the pandemic far from over, writes Sam Kerr.

Hargreaves Lansdown fell in trading on Thursday after Stephen Lansdown, one of the co-founders of the UK retail investment platform, sold £160m of shares in the company via an accelerated bookbuild led by Barclays.

Pension Insurance Corp was almost 12 times subscribed for a new tier two capital bond on Thursday, after following some of its UK peers into the sterling market amid a busy pipeline for new pension risk transfer deals.

Market participants argued that the European Commission could have gone further this week to ease leverage ratio constraints on banks during the coronavirus crisis.

Lloyds Development Capital, the private equity arm of Lloyds Bank, has sold a chunk of its stake in Yorkshire-based games developer Team17 after the stock hit an all-time high due to a huge increase in the volume of gamers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Barclays saw its common equity tier one capital ratio fall 70bp amid balance sheet growth in the first quarter, but analysts suggest the bank should be able to maintain enough capital to carry on paying additional tier one coupons this year.

Banco Santander wasted no time in heading to the non-preferred senior market this week, with investors responding well to the way in which European banks have been dealing with the coronavirus pandemic in their first quarter results.

Hiscox, the London-listed insurance and reinsurance company, is exploring the idea of raising equity to combat uncertainty surrounding the impact of the coronavirus as premiums, particularly in the US, harden.

Supermarket Income Reit, the UK real estate investment trust focused on grocery stores, has attracted strong demand for its latest capital raising to fund new investment opportunities that may arise from the Covid-19 pandemic.