Panmure slides to a loss of £31m but is upbeat on prospects

Panmure Gordon, the stockbroking house, has plunged to an annual loss of £31.5m. But the chairman, Ed Warner, yesterday insisted it has a strong future, partly thanks to the backing of its major investor, the Qatari investment bank QInvest.

"We are back to the good old traditional Panmure Gordon: aUK-focused investment bank and corporate and institutional broker," Mr Warner said.

Now that Panmure has a buyer for its US arm and has cut costs in London, he is confident it can do well in the mid-cap market. He said: "We have one IPO on the road and another in the pipeline. We made a profit in January, February, March and April."

He admitted that the 2007 acquisition of the US business ThinkEquity had been "at the wrong time and at the wrong price".

Mr Warner also said the City had got its pay structures out of line following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Underlying losses rose from £6m to £10.5m in 2011, with £6.5m of that coming from exiting the US business.