Market report: Alfa surges ahead as City toasts year’s biggest float

Investors in the City, sinking a few pints in the sun before the Bank Holiday weekend, had another reason to celebrate today as they toasted the hit float of Alfa Financial Software.

The asset finance software provider, which counts Bank of America and Barclays as clients, priced its shares at 325p, valuing it higher than expected at £975 million and making it the biggest IPO this year in London, which has been devoid of major listings.

Alfa’s shares surged as conditional dealings began, trading 90p, or 28%, higher at 415p on debut as the value swelled to £1.25 billion.

It means institutions lucky enough to get their hands on Alfa’s IPO shares will already be sitting on big paper profits.

Private investors are less fortunate. They will get their chance to trade the shares next Thursday, missing out on today’s leap.

The float marks a big payday for Alfa’s executive chairman Andrew Page, who held almost 90%, and chief executive Andrew Denton, with the remaining 10%.

They will share a £254 million windfall, with Page remaining majority shareholder. The weaker pound propelled the FTSE 100 to new highs as it touched 7535. It lost some ground but was still up 10.12 points at 7527.83.

Events giant Informa, which is gearing up for London Tech Week next month, was the star performer. It rose 30p, or 4.6%, to 680.5p after a solid trading update and on the news it is in talks to sell its Garland Science textbooks business to reduce its exposure to education publishing.

Britvic shares lost their fizz as PepsiCo revealed plans to offload its 4.5% stake in the soft drinks firm, worth just over £80 million after today’s 25.36p, or 3.5%, fall to 697.64p.

Britvic bottles PepsiCo’s drinks in the UK and said the move was no reflection on their working relationship.