CITY AM – Diamond Geezer 

As Panmure pulls the trigger, could Peel Hunt be the next broker to strike?

CITY AM SAYS The City’s small investment banks and brokers have been through a wave of consolidation in the past 12 months. Could Peel Hunt be next?

It came as little surprise in the Square Mile when reports of a Panmure-Liberum tie-up began to surface earlier this month. 

Rich Ricci and Bob Diamond’s hunt for a broking stablemate is understood to stretch back as far as 2020 when Panmure called in advisors to begin sizing up rivals and testing out potential suitors for a merger. As they finally confirmed a deal yesterday, the former-Barclays duo were predictably quick to stress the strategic rationale. 

But the deal points to the tectonic shifts still shaking the smaller investment banking market after a drop-off in dealmaking and IPOs over the past year.

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