Panmure Gordon shook off a series of "significant political shocks" that rattled sentiment and intensified market volatility around the June Brexit vote to return to profitability in the first half of 2016. But the stockbroker's new chief executive is intent on being conservative, not complacent in the face of the challenges ahead.

Panmure Gordon on September 27 reported pre-tax profits of £283,000 for the six months to June 30, compared with a loss of £225,000 a year earlier. While the figure remains significantly lower than the £1.95 million profit reported for the same period in 2014, it marks the first six-monthly profit for the broker since that year, having suffered an overall loss in 2015 of £18.9 million.