In the latest sign of the City’s interest in the litigation funding market, listed funder Burford Capital today announced that it had raised £192.6m through the placing of 10.4m new shares. The offer was oversubscribed by by existing and new institutional investors, the alternative investment market-listed company said.  

It is the company’s first equity issue since 2010 and comes as rival Vannin Capital prepares to float on the London Stock Exchange this month. 

In a statement, Burford’s chief executive, Christopher Bogart, said: 'We continually review our capital structure in light of our desire to support the growth of the business to capture the opportunities before us. It remains important to us that we both optimise our capital structure and retain a conservative balance sheet. We remain excited about the opportunities we see to deploy capital in legal finance to continue to develop our business.’

Burford, which in July reported first-half profits up 17% to £126m on a turnover of £156m, claims 60% of the global litigation funding market. 

Burford shares fell 7.6% today, to 1,838p.