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Two more wins for fledgling broking firm

Birmingham-based Arden Partners was yesterday celebrating two more broking wins since setting up in November, writes Cheryl Cole.

Cradley Health-based property group AJ Mucklow, with a market capitalisation of £146 million and Abbot Group, the leading provider of production drilling services outside the US, worth around £298 million, have both turned their backs on previous advisers.

They have now joined Headlam, Pendragon and Aston Villa as the bedrock of Arden's fledging corporate finance business, helping to confirm the start-up's credentials in the mid to small cap arena.

Arden's corporate finance director Richard Day said: "We are delighted to be acting for both Mucklow and Abbot Group.

"Both have an excellent profit record and strong support from institutional clients.

"This also confirms the confidence that the companies in FTSE 250 have in Arden Partners."

Arden is joint house broker to Abbot with Cazenove.

On trading at Arden in its first six months, Mr Day said: "We are just pleased with the way things are going."

Arden is benefiting from the larger investment houses cyclical, boom/bust attitude to making markets in and researching small market cap shares.

The weak stock market has put pressure on their high fixed cost broking model and many have scaled back their operations, with some like ING and Deutsche closing down their small cap altogether.