Dozens of British companies are preparing to issue fresh equity in coming weeks with bankers expecting more than £30bn to be raised this year through share offerings. Wolseley, the building materials distributor, is expected to outline plans to raise up to £400m of fresh equity on Monday alongside a trading update. Other companies known to be investigating equity issuance include Premier Foods, Debenhams, Chaucer, the Lloyd’s insurer, and a list of property companies including British Land and Land Securities. Bankers say British companies could raise more equity over the next year than at any time since 2000, when according to Dealogic $45bn of new equity was raised by British non-financial companies.

This entry was posted by Gwen Robinson on Friday, January 23rd, 2009 at 5:50 and is filed under Capital markets. Edit this entry.