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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of ECF, XFLT either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Some of Britain’s biggest companies will descend on Reform UK’s national conference this week as the party intensifies its efforts to win over business leaders and strengthen its economic credibility.

Vodafone, EE, Heathrow and JCB are among the businesses attending or running events at the three-day gathering, which opens at the National Exhibition Centre on the outskirts of Birmingham on Thursday.

For the first time, the party is staging a dedicated business day, which it says will place “the business community at the heart of the programme”, offering attendees access to Reform’s leadership.

At least one name on the guest list already has form with the party. JCB, the digger maker chaired by Lord Bamford, donated £200,000 to Reform UK alongside an identical sum for the Conservatives, with Bamford saying both parties “believe in small business”.

Others are keen to stress that turning up is not the same as signing up. A spokesman for Heathrow said the airport had a long history of constructive engagement across the political spectrum. “Like many businesses, from airlines to pubs and banks to supermarkets, it is common practice to sponsor events at party conferences to engage policymakers and ensure they better understand the needs of consumers and the economy,” he added.

Champagne out, corporate packages in

Business Matters has previously reported that Reform almost doubled some commercial costs for this year’s conference, dropping earlier promises of free champagne and custom cocktail naming rights in favour of an event much closer in feel to a traditional party conference.

The price of some packages has climbed as the party looks to woo wealthy backers and boost its coffers. A platinum ticket has risen from £2,500 per person to £3,000 plus VAT, buying a champagne breakfast with Nigel Farage, fast-track entry and access to a special lounge. Insiders have previously described the changes as “a necessary part of our professionalisation, even if it is a bit more boring”.

The policy pitch to employers

Reform arrives in Birmingham with a policy offer aimed squarely at the businesses it is courting. The party has proposed scrapping the contentious increase in employers’ national insurance contributions for workers who are British nationals. That rise, announced in Rachel Reeves’s October 2024 Budget, lifted the employer rate to 15 per cent and cut the threshold at which firms start paying to £5,000 a year, a change the OECD found gave the UK the biggest employer tax rise in the developed world.

The party has also proposed cutting VAT for the hospitality sector to 10 per cent, half the current standard rate of 20 per cent.

Momentum since May

The stepped-up courtship of business follows a run of electoral success. Reform racked up hundreds of council wins in May’s elections, beat Labour into second place in the contest for the Welsh Senedd and finished joint second at Holyrood.

The party has been professionalising its Westminster operation too. Earlier this year it opened the doors of its Millbank headquarters, on the banks of the Thames in London, to public affairs professionals, an event that doubled as a pitch to agencies and featured a speech by Robert Jenrick, the party’s Treasury spokesman.

Not everyone believes the courtship should go unchallenged. Senior Labour figures have urged firms to scrutinise Reform’s economic plans more closely, with the Labour MP Liam Byrne saying companies are right to be concerned about how the party’s promises would be paid for. Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice has rejected that criticism, insisting the party would restore fiscal discipline and cut regulation.

For the companies heading to the NEC this week, the calculation is the one Heathrow set out: engaging policymakers at party conferences is simply part of doing business.

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Scan.com, Britain’s largest private medical imaging company, has raised $220 million from investors including Aviva as it eyes a potential stock market flotation.

The London-based company will put the funds towards a bigger push into the American medical imaging market. The package is made up of a $90 million equity round led by Noteus Partners, the French investment company, with backing from investors including Aviva and Concord Health Partners, alongside debt facilities totalling $130 million provided by VerisFi Capital and Atempo Growth.

Scan.com already generates most of its revenue in the United States, where about 80 per cent of its workforce is based. The American medical imaging market is estimated to be worth more than $100 billion and is projected to grow to just over $121 billion by 2033, according to forecasts by Grand View Research, the American market research provider.

Charlie Bullock, co-founder and chief executive of Scan.com, said that while about 600 million medical imaging scans are run in the US each year, the country still has no national infrastructure network for imaging. “Labs got that decades ago with Quest Diagnostics and Labcorp. Imaging never did, and that is what we have built,” the 30-year-old said.

“We’re a fraction of 1 per cent in terms of [market] penetration,” he said. “Our ambition is to be the leading, biggest diagnostic imaging company in the US. We’re nowhere near there yet, but we feel like we’re on track.”

Where to list

The fundraising comes as the company prepares to meet officials at the London Stock Exchange this week as it works towards a potential IPO, although Bullock said it had yet to decide on a listing venue. Despite its ambitions in the US, the company has no intention of moving its headquarters from the UK, he said.

There is growing concern that UK markets are not attractive enough to retain the highest quality British start-up companies, amid a long-running shortage of the scale-up capital needed to grow the country’s most promising firms. UK start-ups raised a record $17 billion in the first half of 2026, according to figures from Dealroom and HSBC Innovation Banking, yet only 16 per cent of large funding rounds involved domestic investors.

Last month a consortium of some of the UK’s largest pension providers agreed to explore the creation of a “UK Scale-up Fund” that would back the most promising British private companies and manage more than £1 billion, following calls for pension funds to back British scale-ups rather than leaving the returns to overseas investors.

Ant Barker, director of venture capital at Aviva Investors, said UK pension funds increasingly want greater access to high-growth, unlisted companies “that build tomorrow’s technologies and create social value”. Under the Mansion House Compact, nine of the UK’s largest pension providers committed to allocate 5 per cent of their default fund assets to unlisted equities by 2030.

“[Scan.com is] one of the fastest-growing companies in our venture capital portfolio, and well placed to deliver long-term returns for UK savers and institutional investors, in line with our Mansion House Compact objectives,” Barker said.

Built to use spare capacity

Scan.com was founded in 2021 by Bullock, Oliver Knight and Joe Daniels, along with Jasper Nissim, an osteopath, and Khalid Latief, a consultant radiologist.

“[We] saw this problem in the UK around lack of access to diagnostic imaging, lack of price transparency and increased waiting times in the national healthcare service,” Bullock said. There was plenty of capacity sitting unused in imaging centres and hospitals around the UK, he said, but no way to access it.

The company provides a website for booking scans, managing referrals and sharing results, using spare capacity at private providers. Last year it generated $85 million in revenue.

The business had already raised just over $57 million across two previous funding rounds. Aviva’s venture arm co-led the company’s earlier $12 million Series A round, and the insurer has backed it again in the latest raise.

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Target is expanding its push into higher-end beauty with a new specialty-style concept that the retailer says is part of its broader effort to return to growth.

The Minneapolis-based retailer said Target Beauty Studio will launch Sept. 10 in more than 600 stores nationwide and on Target.com, bringing together more than 1,600 products from 90 prestige, emerging and international brands. More than two-thirds of the brands will be new to Target.

The rollout represents a notable expansion of Target’s beauty assortment while adding features more commonly associated with specialty beauty retailers, including dedicated beauty advisers, product testing, rotating product showcases and personalized recommendations.

Target said the new concept is one example of the investments it is making in merchandise and the in-store shopping experience as part of its plans to return to growth. The company operates more than 2,000 U.S. stores.

WALMART AGREES TO PAY $50M SETTLEMENT OVER ALLEGATIONS ITS PHARMACIES FILLED ILLEGAL OPIOID PRESCRIPTIONS

“When guests shop for beauty, they want to pick up their standbys while also exploring what’s new and trending, and Target Beauty Studio is designed with that mix in mind,” Amanda Nusz, Target’s senior vice president of merchandising, essentials and beauty, said in a statement. “It’s an inspiring destination to discover what’s new, now and next in beauty — and a powerful example of how our merchandising authority comes to life through an elevated guest experience.”

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
TGT	TARGET CORP.	163.18	-2.75	-1.66%

The assortment will span skincare, makeup, haircare, fragrance, bath and body products, nail care and sun care. Brands joining Target include Sunday Riley and First Aid Beauty in skincare, Briogeo and Nioxin in haircare and several Korean beauty brands, including Amuse, Kaja and Rom&nd.

The announcement comes after the retailer concluded its shop-in-shop partnership with Ulta Beauty. The partnership rolled out in August 2021 and ended this month.

Target is also adding products from international brands, including Mexican beauty company SARELLY and French nail care brand Manucurist, while offering premium fragrances, styling products, sun care and self-tanning products.

Stores with Target Beauty Studio will feature a central display that rotates several times a year to highlight brands, collaborations and seasonal products. The retailer will also offer a dedicated assortment of miniature products designed to give shoppers a lower-cost way to try new items.

The company is tying the concept to its Target Circle loyalty program through exclusive offers and experiences. Target said the first 100 guests at most stores during a Sept. 26 promotional event will receive a Target Circle bonus that can be used to shop Beauty Studio in stores and online.

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Target said Beauty Studio will continue to evolve with new brands and products, while its existing beauty assortment will remain alongside the new concept.

The much-awaited initial public offering (IPO) of the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) could be closer to launch, leaving investors with two routes to gain exposure to the exchange: buy its shares in the pre-IPO, unlisted market or wait for the public issue.

Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey on August 27 said the market regulator was close to clearing the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) filed by NSE, the world’s largest derivatives exchange by trading volume.

NSE filed its draft prospectus in June for an IPO that will comprise entirely of an offer for sale (OFS), allowing existing shareholders to pare their stakes. The exchange had initially expected SEBI clearance for its DRHP by early August. The timeline was subsequently pushed back by around three weeks following changes to the roster of selling shareholders, with SBI Capital Markets being added.

At the top end of the marketed valuation of Rs 5.26 lakh crore ($55 billion), NSE would rank sixth among global exchange operators by market capitalisation, narrowly behind London Stock Exchange Group Plc and ahead of Nasdaq Inc, according to Bloomberg.

NSE unlisted share price

NSE’s unlisted shares are currently changing hands at around Rs 1,970, according to data from Unlisted Arena. The shares were quoted at around Rs 2,010 when NSE filed its DRHP.
Over the past year, the unlisted stock has traded in a range of around Rs 1,800-2,150, well below its June 2025 peak of Rs 2,590.The shares had slipped to around Rs 1,950 on July 28-29 before recovering to current levels.

ALSO READ: NSE IPO coming soon: Should investors buy unlisted shares now or wait for the mega issue?

With NSE’s IPO expected in the second half of September, investors are now assessing whether to enter the stock through the unlisted market or wait for the public offering and its eventual listing.

How to buy NSE unlisted shares

NSE shares currently trade in the unlisted, over-the-counter market, where investors can acquire equity in companies ahead of their listing on recognised stock exchanges.

Unlike a listed stock, NSE’s unlisted shares do not have a continuous exchange-based price discovery mechanism or a live market price. Trades are negotiated privately between buyers and sellers, with the final transaction price depending on the prevailing quote and available liquidity.

Investors looking to acquire NSE shares can approach SEBI-registered investment banks, brokers or specialised unlisted-share dealers. These intermediaries facilitate transactions by matching investors seeking to buy pre-IPO shares with existing shareholders looking to sell.

Investors can also purchase shares directly from existing shareholders, including promoters, founders, angel investors and employees holding vested ESOPs. Such transactions are generally negotiated over the counter and may involve sizeable minimum ticket sizes.

Pre-IPO platforms also aggregate such opportunities and facilitate the KYC, price discovery and share-transfer process.

Step-by-step process to buy NSE unlisted shares

Choose an intermediary or platform: Register with a specialised unlisted-share platform or dealer offering NSE shares.

Complete KYC: Submit documents including PAN, Aadhaar, bank account details and the Client Master Report (CMR/CML) issued by your depository participant. The CMR contains details such as your demat account, DP ID, Client ID and linked bank account.

Check the quote and lot size: Unlike an exchange-traded stock, there is no central order book or exchange-determined price for NSE’s unlisted shares. Buyers and sellers negotiate the transaction price and quantity, with intermediaries facilitating the trade.

Place the order and make payment: Once the price and quantity are agreed upon, the buyer transfers funds through the payment channel specified by the platform, including UPI, NEFT, RTGS or a designated escrow account.

Complete the transfer documentation: Depending on the transaction, documentation may include the share purchase agreement (SPA), delivery instruction slip (DIS), proof of payment and transfer deed (SH-4).

Receive the shares in the demat account: Once the transaction is verified and the seller confirms the transfer, the shares are moved through an off-market transfer and credited to the buyer’s demat account through the depository system. The shares may typically be credited within 24 to 48 business hours, according to the details provided.

The two depositories, CDSL and NSDL, oversee the electronic transfer of shares. Proper documentation is critical to establishing the transfer of title, as unlisted transactions do not pass through the standard order-matching and settlement mechanism of a stock exchange.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Lawrence Fuller is the Principal of Fuller Asset Management (FAM), a state registered investment adviser. He is also the manager of the Focused Growth portfolio on the copy-trading platform Dubapp.com. Information presented is for educational purposes only intended for a broad audience. The information does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale of purchase of any specific securities, investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and are not guaranteed. FAM has reasonable belief that this marketing does not include any false or material misleading statements or omissions of facts regarding services, investment, or client experience. FAM has reasonable belief that the content as a whole will not cause an untrue or misleading implication regarding the adviser’s services, investments, or client experiences. Past performance of specific investment advice should not be relied upon without knowledge of certain circumstances or market events, nature and timing of investments and relevant constraints of the investment. FAM has presented information in a fair and balanced manner. FAM is not giving tax, legal, or accounting advice.
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Seeking Alpha’s Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.