Smarter Web Company was behind London’s seventh-biggest equity raise in July

After London’s capital markets suffered one of their quietest starts to the year in decades, brokers all had the same words on their lips: second-half. Everything will pick up in the second half, they said. You just wait and see.

If the start of the second half is anything to go by, those brokers may be waiting longer than they’d hoped for. The latest monthly capital markets report by Investec shows total equity raised in the UK stood at just £810m in July – down more than 40 per cent compared to the same month last year.

Notably – and perhaps embarrassingly – the seventh-biggest deal by value was by a firm which turned over just £176,000 between January and April. That firm was Smarter Web Company, which o

See Full Page