Aviva offloads stake in Singlife, St James's Place confirms new CEO rumours
London open
The FTSE 100 is expected to open 20 points lower on Wednesday, having closed up 0.41% on Tuesday at 7,527.53.
Stocks to watch
UK insurer Aviva on Wednesday said it had agreed to sell its 25.9% stake in Singapore Life Holdings (Singlife), together with two debt instruments, to Sumitomo Life for £800m in cash. Sumitomo Life will pay consideration £500m for Aviva's equity stake and £300 for the two debt instruments. Sumitomo Life is currently a 23.2% shareholder in Singlife and sees Singapore as a key market within its overall Southeast Asia strategy, Aviva said in a statement.
Investment management firm St James's Place has confirmed recent rumours that it is replacing its long-running chief executive officer Andrew Croft with former Prudential boss Mark FitzPatrick. SJP confirmed back in May that it was looking for a successor to Croft, who has been with the company since 1993, serving as chief financial officer from 2004 to 2017 and CEO since 2018. Reports in recent weeks suggested FitzPatrick was leading the race to become the company's new CEO.
Newspaper round-up
Treasury officials are discussing a one-off break from the pensions triple lock that could save £1bn by preventing a bumper 8.5% increase in the state pension next year. The government is considering stripping out public sector bonuses that were awarded to workers to prevent strikes over the summer from the calculation that determines the annual rise in pensions. – Guardian
Apple will stop using leather across all of its accessories in an effort to “protect the planet” and meet its net zero targets by 2030. The US tech giant said it would stop using leather in its watch straps and phone cases and replace it with a material called “FineWoven”, which is made using 68pc recycled textiles and other artificial fibres. – Telegraph
Andrew Bailey and his colleagues at the Bank of England all agree that inflation must be crushed. Unfortunately, they don’t agree on the best way to do it: policymakers are split on whether to hold interest rates at their current level of 5.25pc or raise it higher at next week’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting. – Telegraph
Lawyers for the US government claimed yesterday that Google did not play by the rules in its efforts to keep its dominance in online search, paying billions of dollars to ensure that smaller rivals failed to get traction. “This case is about the future of the internet,” Kenneth Dintzer said, arguing for the Department of Justice that Google had begun in 2010 to illegally maintain its monopoly. – The Times
The Barclay family did not enjoy a big windfall from selling the Ritz, despite achieving a price of about £750 million for the hotel, it has emerged. The 117-year-old Ritz was the crown jewel of the Barclays’ business empire, but the sale of the London landmark caused a family feud that culminated in a legal battle and allegations of secretly bugged conversations. – The Times
US close
US stocks closed lower on Tuesday, with Apple in focus on the announcement of its iPhone 15, while investors also closed their wallets ahead of August’s consumer price index data, scheduled for Wednesday.
At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.05% at 34,645.99, while the S&P 500 faced a sharper decline of 0.57%, ending the day at 4,461.90.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite was the most affected, shedding 1.04% to close at 13,773.61.
In currency trading, the dollar was last down 0.01% on sterling at 80.05p, while it decreased 0.01% as well against the common currency, trading at 92.98 euro cents.
The greenback meanwhile remained stable on the yen, last changing hands at JPY 147.08.