The writer is a former global head of equity capital markets at Bank of America and now a managing director at Seda Experts As the UK gears up for a July general election, London seems to be buzzing again as a hotspot for raising equity. Last month National Grid launched a superjumbo £7bn rights issue — the largest global equity offering this year — to back a massive investment programme. The FTSE 100 has hit record highs this year amid a rebound in investor interest in UK stocks .
Volumes have been dominated by large block trades, such as the Blackstone-led consortium’s exit from LSEG and the sales by GSK and Pfizer of stakes in consumer health spin-off Haleon. Bereft of fund inflows, UK investors prefer putting money into blue-chip names they know over punting in growth companies they don’t. As for the FTSE rally this year, much of it stems from “bid spec” — speculation that corporates or private equity will launch takeover bids for lowly-valued UK firms.