British debt collector is planning a £1bn float

DEBT collector Cabot Credit Management is to float for £1bn on the London Stock Exchange – overseen by the chairman of payday loan firm Wonga.

Cabot buys overdue credit card and other unsecured debt from banks and other lenders, then chases customers for the money.

The firm will be chaired by Wonga’s chairman Andy Haste, who once ran insurer RSA.

Bosses at Cabot have bought £21bn of debt since the company was founded in 1998 and it is chasing around 7m people.

The firm expects to recover £2.2bn of cash it is owed over the next ten years.

It will float between 25pc and 40pc of the business on the London Stock Exchange next month, raising around £195m to pay off debts.

The float will also generate millions for owners Encore Capital Group and private equity group JC Flowers.

It is one of several large floats in the works as listing activity hots up. Dutch finance firm TMF is due to go public for £1.4bn next month, and is moving its headquarters to Britain in what bosses called a ‘vote of confidence’ for the country.

It will be joined by Russian energy company EN+ – owned by billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska – which is raising £1.1bn.

More businesses floated in London than any rival in Europe, the Middle East, India or Africa in the third quarter of 2017, said accountant EY.

The biggest this year has been Allied Irish Banks, worth £10.5bn, which raised £3bn in one of the City’s biggest stock market listings for two decades.