LSE agrees sale of Borsa Italiana, British Land reinstates dividend

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open five points higher on Friday, having closed up 0.53% on Thursday, at 5,978.03.

Stocks to watch

London Stock Exchange has agreed the sale of Borsa Italiana for about €4.32bn (£3.9bn) to Euronext, the company said on Friday. London Stock Exchange has agreed the sale of Borsa Italiana for about €4.32bn (£3.9bn) to Euronext, the company said on Friday.The company is selling Borsa Italiana to get approval for its $27bn purchase of financial data business Refinitiv, announced in August 2019. LSE chief executive David Schwimmer said the company continued to make good progress on the “highly attractive” Refinitiv transaction.

British Land reinstated its dividend after performance at its retail assets improved following the Covid-19 lockdown. The commercial property company said it would announce an interim dividend in November and that payouts would be 80% of underlying earnings per share. It will pay the dividend twice a year instead of quarterly. British Land suspended the dividend in March to protect its finances as much of the UK economy shut down to stem the spread of Covid-19.

Biffa has acquired the industrial and commercial waste collection business Simply Waste Solutions, it announced on Friday, which focuses on the south of England. The FTSE 250 company said it had acquired all of the share capital of Camo, which trades under the Simply Waste brand, for an upfront debt and cash free consideration of £ 35m. That was being funded from existing committed debt facilities.

Newspaper round-up

Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people face being told to stay at home this winter as ministers plan to resume shielding in infection hotspots. Advice for clinically vulnerable people to avoid others could be included in the top tier of a simplified local lockdown system to be announced next week, as concern mounts about rising infection rates in the north of England. - The Times

Donald Trump, who is still recovering from Covid-19, has suggested he might organize a rally in Florida on Saturday, while continuing to ignore questions on whether he has yet tested negative for the disease. On Thursday night, Trump said: “I think I’m going to try doing a rally on Saturday night if we can, if we have enough time to put it together.” - Guardian

A takeover of TalkTalk is edging closer after the telecoms group agreed to talks over a £1.1 billion cash approach from Toscafund, a hedge fund and one of its largest shareholders. The board of the FTSE 250 company is in discussions with Toscafund over a preliminary 97p-per-share offer along with TalkTalk’s advisers Barclays and Deutsche Bank. - The Times

The businessman Dominic Chappell evaded tax on the £2.2m income he received from buying the failed BHS high street chain from retail tycoon Sir Philip Green, a court has heard. He ended up in this position because “he was simply too busy” to sort out his business dealings properly and he was “let down by others”, a jury at London’s Southwark crown court was told. - Guardian

US close

Wall Street stocks managed a positive close on Thursday, as investors thumbed over some weaker-than-expected jobless figures and stimulus headlines remained in focus.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.43% at 28,425.51, while the S&P 500 added 0.8% to 3,446.83, and the Nasdaq Composite was 0.5% firmer at 11,420.98.

The Dow closed 122.05 points higher on Thursday, extending gains recorded by the blue-chip index in the previous session, its best in months, amid conflicting messages from the president regarding his stance on further economic stimulus payments.

Thursday's main focus was this week's jobless claims data from the Labor Department, which revealed initial jobless claims fell from a revised print of 849,000 to 840,000 in the week ended 3 October, shy of expectations for a reading of 825,000.

The reading marked the sixth straight week that saw claims hover at around 800,000, indicating a potential slowdown in the US labour market recovery.