Small Cap Awards 2025: Broker of the Year Nominees

Held annually, the Small Cap Awards celebrate outstanding achievements in the UK’s sub-£350m market cap quoted company sector. This prestigious event brings together industry leaders, fostering trust, innovation, and excellence among smaller quoted companies.

The awards will recognise companies and participants listed on or before January 1, 2024, across various categories. Winners will be unveiled at a black-tie gala dinner on Thursday 19th June, at Merchant Taylors’ Hall, City of London

This exclusive event will be attended by institutions, fund managers, brokers, company directors, entrepreneurs, and advisors, providing a unique opportunity to connect with those driving exceptional growth and performance in the small-cap sector over the past year.

The nominees for Broker of the Year are as follows:

Cavendish

Cavendish is a leading UK investment bank, championing ambitious growth and investment companies. The Group is trusted by public and private businesses across a range of sectors to deliver expert services in equity capital markets, M&A, debt advisory, and growth capital. Cavendish has offices in London, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh, and a global reach through its membership of Oaklins. Cavendish plc is quoted on AIM.

Website: www.cavendish.com

Canaccord Genuity

Canaccord Genuity is a global full-service investment bank focused on growth companies. We work seamlessly across our global operations in the US, Canada, UK & Europe, Asia and Australia with clients spanning private companies, private equity, listed companies and institutional investors. Our team has the agility to offer a wide range of advisory and capital raising services to both emerging and established companies. These services include M&A and Financial Advisory, Corporate Broking, Equity Capital Markets, Debt Advisory and Restructuring.

Through our UK public markets practice we help great businesses scale and thrive. ​We provide access to growth capital, straight-forward advice and tailored support, with the ever-present objective of nurturing long-term trusted relationships with our corporate clients. We help our corporate clients develop and grow their businesses based on our informed sector intelligence, insights around key themes and M&A ideas – all with the advantage of an international perspective. We are authorised sponsors for the Main Market for the London Stock Exchange and also qualified to act as a Nominated Advisor on AIM.

2024 was another difficult year across the market, so we’re really proud that we were able to deliver a market-leading performance over the period. Raising money in tough markets is the ultimate test for an advisor. It takes hard work and clear focus on outcomes, which our fantastic team provides each day. We have raised more capital for our clients on AIM over the last three years than any other broker (Source: Dealogic). Our success in 2024/2025 can be attributed to the following factors:

1. Our people | We’ve hired well and have a fantastic team. Our profitable financial performance has allowed us to maintain team stability, so we can provide a consistent, high-quality service for our clients.

2. Our approach | We take a holistic and individual approach to each client mandate. To get a fundraise right in these markets, every part of an investment story needs due consideration and the process requires careful planning.

3. Our expertise | We focus on a few core sectors and have developed deep expertise in each. This gives us a trusted voice in the market and the ability to help companies craft a compelling story.

4. Our global footprint | As a global organisation, we’re able to sell UK listed corporates to investors around the world. This opens up the investment community for our clients.

5. Our clients | We only work with companies we believe in. We’re fortunate to have a great group of clients, which makes our job much easier! Thank you to each and every one of them!

Website: www.cgf.com

Panmure Liberum

Panmure Liberum is one of the UK’s leading Investment Banks. We provide a full-service Investment Banking offering including all capital raising and advisory requirements, as well as Distribution, Research and Execution services.

Panmure Liberum is an all-cap full-service integrated investment bank able to offer all advisory and capital raising requirements for our 200+ corporate clients. We are the lead advisor to listed companies in the UK, ranked first by total number of stock market clients, and total AIM clients by market cap. Based in London, with offices in New York, Cambridge and Leeds and with partnerships in Continental Europe and Asia we are able support global distribution for our 500+ covered stocks. The highly experienced teams are aligned by across 12 industry pillars to ensure complete integration across the business. In addition, our Strategy, Economics and ESG team provides research in global economics, UK and European strategy including thematic research on commodities and ESG. Our execution team aims to provide best-in-class services across equities, investments funds and ETFs including making markets in 650+ stocks.

Proudly independent, we deliver excellence and foster real and lasting relationships with our clients – priding ourselves on being straight-talking, loyal and innovative in addressing their needs.

Website: www.panmureliberum.com

Zeus Capital

Founded in 2003, Zeus was established with a clear mission: to support entrepreneurs and growth businesses in realising their full potential—with energy, expertise, and passion. That founding ethos continues to drive us today.

Zeus is a leading independent financial services group operating across both public and private capital markets in the UK. We provide a full range of services including Investment Banking, Equity Sales, Research & Trading, and Investment Management.

With offices in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, and Leeds, we are well-positioned to serve clients nationwide.

Website: www.zeuscapital.co.uk

Peel Hunt

Peel Hunt is a leading UK investment bank. We focus on long-term success and helping companies to grow and scale. We have a strong track record of enabling companies to access capital and to ensure that they have the backing of investors to help them achieve their goals. This incorporates accessing both domestic investors as well as portfolios from across the globe, not only from traditional geographies such as North America and Europe, but increasingly from the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

We have an integrated approach, which combines best-in-class research and distribution with a broad range of investment banking services and an execution platform that provides liquidity across the UK capital markets. We currently have 145 corporate clients, which stretches from smaller businesses through to the FTSE100 and encompasses both AIM and fully listed companies. We also have a private capital markets team, which focuses on connecting private companies with potential investors. Our M&A team has been highly active given the level of transactions incorporating UK companies.

Peel Hunt is leading the debate on the structural issues in the UK equity market, which has experienced three years of outflows every month from UK funds. This has resulted in low valuations vs private companies and global peers, which has driven a surge in M&A activity and resulted in de-equitisation of the London market. We are discussing with government, regulators and other interested parties mechanisms to encourage capital back into the UK to reverse the long-standing trend towards globalisation of portfolios and the increase in allocation to passive funds and larger companies. This is essential to ensure that we retain a vibrant capital market that is supportive of UK growth companies for the benefit of the UK economy, shareholders and taxpayers.

Website: www.peelhunt.com