The market value of Paragon, the UK specialist mortgage provider, nearly halved this morning as it emerged UBS was providing the company with emergency equity financing. The move comes a month after Financial News reported that the company could be forced to wind down its business or put itself up for sale.

Shares in Paragon lost 47% of their value in trading this morning as the lender announced its preliminary results for the year, saying it had secured a £280m (€392m) stand-by equity underwriting facility from Swiss financial group UBS.