It’s the debt that makes you sweat.

That would appear to be the message from the wholesale rush for cash now gripping the London stockmarket. After years of leveraging up their balance sheets to take advantage of cheap and plentiful debt finance, Britain’s biggest companies are now passing round the begging bowl in an effort to shore up their balance sheets.

First it was the top-tier banks, notably Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS, which between them are seeking £16 billion. Now it is the second-tier players, such as Bradford & Bingley, which this morning launched a £300 million rights issue.

But if the second week of May marks a new stage of the credit crunch it is for the first sign that non-banks are seeking to unwind their leverage, too.

Yesterday, G4S, the security services provider formerly Group 4 Securicor, conducted a £280 million share placing. Today, First Group, the bus and train operator, launched at £200 million, equity fundraising to ease its debt burden following the acquisition of Laidlaw, while Johnston Press called for £212 million in cash and announced that Usaha Tegas, the Malaysian investment group, is taking a 20 per cent stake.

The bigger question is whether institutional investors have the necessary cash to oblige. The short answer is yes. Citigroup calculates that the UK stockmarket is sitting on around £90 billion of cash. Further, we are also in the midst of the main dividend paying season, which should see another £20 billion flow back to investors.

But as the current pace of these fundraisings suggest, there is also a degree of urgency. Those companies that ask for cash first should receive the best levels of take-up. Six months on, when fundraising fatigue is likely to have set in, the stockmarket may be less accommodating.

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