UK

Grit Real Estate Income Group, the pan-African real estate company based in Mauritius, has raised $132.1m through the sale of 92.4m shares in a placing to investors, prior to listing in London on Tuesday.

The UK ECM market is having a good summer, with several large transactions and important deals executed, despite much of the market being shuttered up for the holiday season.

Nationwide Building Society paid a slim premium for $1bn of non-preferred senior bonds in callable format this week, as bankers tipped the dollar market as being open for business this summer.

Metro Bank raised £303m from a primary non-preemptive placing after market close in London on Tuesday night but although it received a strong reception the stock traded down on Wednesday.

Greencoat Renewables, the renewable energy fund listed in Dublin and London, has raised €111m to fund Irish windfarm acquisitions.

Colin Withers left ING’s EM and high yield syndicate last week after seven years at the bank and shortly before Uzair Burney, a high yield syndicate official from Lloyds, is set to join the desk.

Julian Dunkerton, founder of fashion brand Superdry, sold a 5.5m share block in the company for £71m after the market closed on Monday.

Connect Plus (M25), the project company that manages the M25 motorway around London, has priced its first public bond issue, for £893m, to unwind interest rate swaps from 2009 and refinance part of a £1bn loan.

Foreign purchases of UK businesses will come under closer government scrutiny if a new white paper is approved, as loans bankers’ fears earlier in the year about M&A becoming tougher to get through UK regulators materialise.

At the end of a dead week for equity block trading in Europe, Barclays hit the market on Thursday night with a £78m sale of stock in Hays, the UK recruitment consultancy, on behalf of Equiom Turst, a Guernsey registered trust and a trustee of the Chainpoint Unit Trust.

The UK mid-market IPO, an often overlooked corner of the EMEA ECM galaxy, has had a good year despite the chaos surrounding the UK’s exit from the European Union. Many expect that to be the case even after Brexit given the market is a rich source of companies with strong growth profiles.

Future Plc, the UK magazine publisher, plans to raise £105m via a fully underwritten rights issue to fund its takeover of Purch, the US technology and science magazine publisher.