A dearth of equity issues plunged Collins Stewart’s capital markets business into a loss for the first six months of the year, the UK’s largest broker said on Tuesday as it warned conditions would remain difficult well into next year.

Overall first-half profits before tax fell 82 per cent from £52m to £9.6m, as revenues fell by a third and the company wrote down £6m on investments made in earlier periods. As a result, the interim dividend – normally a third of the total dividend – was cut from 2.5p to 1.3p.