UK

Numis wants to shed its tag as a UK small-cap broker and become a bigger force in European corporate finance, writes David Rothnie

"We want to use this change of structure and these new leadership roles to foster this multi-product solutions mentality," Pete Mason tells GlobalCapital

This week's funding scorecard looks at the progress European sovereigns have made in their funding programmes in August.

The Emerging Markets Investor Alliance, a non-profit comprising several major EM asset managers, will release “enhanced” principles for green, social, sustainable and sustainability-linked bonds on Thursday in response to what it sees as a “loss of confidence” in the labelled bond asset class.

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.

Virgin Atlantic is reportedly preparing an IPO on the London Stock Exchange, raising the prospect of a major airline flotation at a time when the industry is still facing severe headwinds due to the pandemic.

Banks are seeing light at the end of the tunnel as they emerge from major cost cutting exercises at the same time as economies around the world begin to emerge, erratically, from pandemic restrictions. Now the question is whether there will be enough capital markets business to go around.

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.

RBC Capital Markets has hired Citi's former head of structured credit sales EMEA, John Miles, to lead its recently established alternatives and private capital solutions (APCS) group.

City Electrical Factors, a UK electrical wholesale network, has agreed on a £150m five-year secured credit facility. Wells Fargo served as sole lender, as the bank looks to expand its loan book in Europe.

Despite high inflation readings, the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee voted to keep up its purchases of UK government bonds at its meeting on Thursday. The MPC did offer some guidance on when the central bank will begin to reduce its stock of assets.

Liberum has hired Nicholas How from Peel Hunt to oversee its support services and industrials investment banking team, which includes two other new faces.