Porton Down Gets £580m Investment

The UK is investing £580m in its DSTL's Porton Down (in the UK county of Wiltshire). This includes a new lab for biological threats named after NATO co-founder Ernest Bevin.  There is also a £1.6bn set-aside for founders in defence technology up to 2030.

NWE Jet Fuel Soars, 13,000 flights cancelled in May

Following US and Israel strikes on Iran in March, jet fuel (priced in $ per tonne) has risen from roughly $750 to more than $1500 per tonne. 

Istanbul and Chicago O'Hare have been the most impacted in terms of cancellations (according to data from aviation analytics firm Cirium). This is partly due to Turkish Airlines being hard hit by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Lufthansa has also cancelled many flights. 

The 13,000 cancellations represents 1% of global flights.

The UK imports around 65% of the jet fuel it uses.

The IEA has warned Europe will face jet fuel shortages by June.

Mistral's $830m Debt Raise for Europe Data Centres

Mistral ("Frontier AI. In your hands"), a French AI startup led by ex-DeepMind Arthur Mensch, which has a "Donkey Kong room" in its Paris office, and not to be confused with Mistral Group (UK bus and coach provider), has raised money from a consortium of banks to run a new data center powered by Nvidia chips. A non-exhaustive list of banks involved include HSBC Holdings, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, BNP Paribas ("The bank for a changing world") and Credit Agricole CIB.

Evelyn Partners Sells EPFS (Employee Benefits Arm) to Howden, Refocus on Private Wealth

Private wealth manager Evelyn Partners is selling Evelyn Partners Financial Services, EPFS, to Howden, a global insurance intermediary, to refocus the firm on its core competency of wealth management. 

38 employees in the Employee Benefits department will transfer in the first quarter of 2026.

Evelyn Partners' CEO, Paul Geddes (former CEO of FTSE-250 firm Direct Line, acquired by Aviva on 1 July 2025) remarked appreciatively:

 "Howden will be a great long-term owner".

Evelyn has a 10-member Executive Management team headed by by Paul, covering areas like Finance, Financial Planning (led by Emma Sterland, ex-HSBC private bank), Risk and Compliance and Marketing. Technology comes under COO Bahador Mahvelati.

Evelyn is the third biggest UK wealth manager by AUM: in order - 

• St James' Place Wealth Management (£160bn+)
• Rathbones Group (£60bn+)
• Evelyn Partners (£60bn+), formerly Tilney Smith & Williamson

RBC Brewin Dolphin (under RBC) and Coutts (part of the NatWest Group) with £40bn come next.

Reshuffling Residencies at Informa PLC

Falkirk-born Lord Stephen Carter (founding CEO of media watchdog Ofcom in 2003), Group Chief Executive of Informa, a FTSE100 company, has shifted his residency to the UAE.  The Group's COO, Patrick Martell, has moved to Informa's New York office. Just 5% of Informa's revenue is domestic 40% US and 36% Middle East and Asia. The Board signed off the mass relocation plan following executives spending increasingly less time in the UK.

AIM-listed Filtronic PLC Secures SpaceX Contract

Filtronic PLC, a leader in advanced microelectronics (AIM:FTC), has secured a £47.3m ($62.5m) order from SpaceX for the company's proprietary gallium-nitride ("GaN") E-band product.

Higher power and efficiency are what's offered over the company's gallium arsenide product range. Gallium's semiconductor properties are key to its usage in communications applications.  GaN and GaAs allow faster data transmission than silicon and is reliable at high temperatures. 

Nat Edington, CEO, reflected on the order, stating "we are extremely proud".

Gallium is not considered a rare earth currently, it is quite abundant but concentrated deposits are rare.

Bridgepoint Buys £800m Stake in MyDentist

Private equity firm Bridgepoint has bought a reported £800m stake in MyDentist, which runs more than 500 practices in the UK, and is the biggest chain supplying the UK market.  

Bridgepoint has previously owned care home operator Care UK.

Bridgepoint has $86bn AuM. In private equity, they are Europe's leading mid-market growth investor.

Focus sectors include Advanced Industrials (with a focus on asset-light businesses with robust technology), Business and Financial Services (where they look for scale and growth potential) and Healthcare, with Technology running as a horizontal. 

It has a thirty year history, formed from the management buyout from NatWest Ventures by William Jackson.

Visma Eyes London IPO

IPO Plans

As the UK market grapples with firms preferring to list on Nasdaq, or being taken private, Norwegian firm Visma, which provides accounting and payroll software to SMEs is looking to go public on the London market.  

Ownership

Visma is 70% owned by Hg and co-investors, which include GIC and TPG.

A Multi Billion EUR Company with M&A as a Core Growth Driver

Visma has grown with 350 bolt-on acquisitions with 2.8 billion EUR revenues last year. 

Example acquisition and its Merits (New regions and jurisdictions)

One of their more recent acquisitions was Evoliz in February 2025, which provides cloud based financial management for SMEs in France (alternativement PMEs - or petite et moyenne entreprises) and whose CEO is François Aupetit.  At time of acquisition, Evoliz had almost 13,000 customers. It's functionality includes invoicing, quote management and VAT, basically all the workflow that will ultimately flow into your financial accounts.  It is also NF203 certified (French standard for management software) anticipating new regulations on electronic invoicing from 2026.

UK Tech M&A Dominated by AI and Cyber Firms

UK Software M&A was worth £13.2 billion last year, with deployments across 420 deals, a 27% rise from the previous year. Certainly there have been and still are economic headwinds, but according to a recent study by BearingPoint Capital, private equity appetite for such deals (Software and Software-as-a-Service) remains resilient. The UK is responsible for a third of all software buyouts in Europe. Technology due diligence, with cyber diligence as a related but often separated area, are becoming increasingly important.

Monzo Reportedly Hires Morgan Stanley to Prepare IPO

The UK digital bank, approaching its 10th anniversary, is preparing to pitch to investors in the build up to a potential IPO, believed to be targeted at the £6-£7bn mark for a listing in London or New York. Key customer metrics include: 11 million personal customers and 600,000 business customers.

UK Signs Trade Deal with India; Whisky Tariffs Down

India will reduce tariffs on whisky and gin from 150% to 75% with 40% by year 10, according to the UK government. There will be tariffs on UK car exports to India but tariffs on those cars will drop from 100% to 10%.  Many tariffs on Indian goods to the UK will be wiped out. UK companies can also bid to deliver Indian public sector services for the first time.

Hagerty extols virtues of the GENIUS (Stablecoin) Act

Senator William ("Bill") Hagerty (Republican), who had a pre-politics career at the Boston Consulting Group, is pushing for the GENIUS Act to be passed.

The GENIUS Act stands for Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins and per Hagerty "creates a strong, forward-looking regulatory framework to modernize our payment systems and affirms the dominance of the US dollar". 

The UK has been proactive in creating conditions for stablecoin development in the UK but has come under criticism for overly constraining market development.

As a sidebar, stablecoins are digital assets which can be used to make payments. These so-called "coins" can be created technology companies rather than traditional banks and are backed by equivalent currency in a 1:1 ratio. They are thus less volatile than traditional cryptocurrencies.

David Cameron joins Finback Investment Partners

David Cameron has joined private equity firm Finback Investment Partners, co-founded by ex Florida Governor Jeb Bush (Jeb's changes to Florida's economy led to his state gaining AAA credit ratings for the first time ever). The appointment was disclosed by the UK government's Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (ACOBA).

Marginal Gains as UK joins Pacific Trade Pact

The UK has joined the CPTPP an Asia Pacific trade pact that includes Australia.  It stands for the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership first signed in March 2018. CPTPP countries accounted for 8% of UK exports in 2019. Mexico, Chile and Peru are the South and Central American nations currently part of this group.

UK Infrastructure Bank renamed National Wealth Fund

This change was announced at an International Investment Summit in London by Chancellor Rachel Reeves. The new name indicates a remit beyond infrastructure.

Royal Mint Announces Precious Metals Recycling Facility in South Wales

The UK's oldest company with a history of over one thousand years. the Royal Mint, found in 886 AD, has announced a modern facility in South Wales which extracts gold from Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). Up to 4,000 tonnes of PCBs (found in TVs, laptops and mobile phones) from E-waste will be processed annually. Sean Millard, Chief Growth Office of the Royal Mint, stated the factory underpinned the company's commitment to sustainable precious metals.

UK Unveils Hydrogen Investment Plan (#2 in TP Plan)

The UK government has unveiled its plan for hydrogen investment to 2030. Further details in the policy papers. Low carbon hydrogen is a key part of the UK's strategy to go net-zero by 2050. It forms part of the government's Ten Point Plan for a "green industrial revolution" announced in November 2020 aimed at creating 250,000 jobs. Hydrogen sits at priority number two with an aim to generate 5GW from low carbon hydrogen by 2030 just below offshore wind, where the aim is to quadruple the UK's current production to 40GW by 2030. Number 3 is nuclear - advancing nuclear as a clean energy source.

Legal and General Goes Long Science Investment

Legal and General are developing a science and innovation district as part of a £4bn partnership with the University of Oxford. Begbroke Science Park will be extended over an adjacent site of 14 hectares. Laura Mason, CEO of Legal and General (and an Oxford Engineering alumnus) announced the expansion as a boon to the life sciences and health sectors.

Massive £8bn Valuation as Wise Hits the London Stock Market, Win for Valar and a16z, and Post Brexit London

Wise, formerly known as Transferwise, founded in 2010, did a direct listing on the London Stock Exchange, in a move mimicking the approach used by Spotify in 2018. 

Nevertheless, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and Morgan Stanley were hired to advise on the listing. 

Estonian co-founders Kristo Kaarmann and Taveet Hinrikus have become paper billionaires. CNBC has described it as a "big win for post Brexit London".

Other winners include early investors like Peter Thiel's Valar Ventures (originally spun out of Thiel Capital) and Andreessen Horowitz (founded in 2009, a year before Wise, by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, both of Netscape fame).

Dark Pool Limits Lifted in the UK Post Brexit

In February 2021, more than 16% of trades in UK blue chips were done in dark pools with a higher proportion of FTSE 250 stock flow occurring in dark pools vs. FTSE 100.  

For comparison, around 10% of DAX trades have been flowing through dark pools, according to data from Rosenblatt Securities.

The UK has broadly stood by dark pools as a boon to the market; whereas the EU, wary of their opacity, instituted rules back in 2013 that limited trades that could go through dark pools, both in terms of stock names as well as venues. Post-Brexit, these caps will no longer apply in the UK.

High spreads on UK exchanges has been one of the driver of dark pool liquidity in the UK.

Research from the FCA suggests dark trading damages liquidity when volumes exceed 15% of total volume traded.