Hipgnosis acquires Rick James catalogue, Tritax buys Tesco distribution unit

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 66 points lower on Friday, having closed down 0.68% on Thursday, at 6,338.94.

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Hipgnosis Songs Fund has acquired a 50% share of the music catalogue of Grammy Award-winning songwriter, record producer, and punk-funk inventor, Rick James for an undisclosed sum. The company on Friday said the deal involved publishing interests, writers' share, neighbouring rights and recorded masters share of income in his catalogue comprising 97 songs. James is best known for his platinum certified album 'Street Songs', which spent an unprecedented 78 weeks on the US R&B chart, including 20 weeks at number 1, and included the global hit 'Super Freak'.

Indivior said the US federal court in the Western District of Virginia approved its agreement with the Department of Justice and other agencies and dismissed charges related to sales of a treatment for opioid addiction. The ruling confirms Indivior's settlement with the DoJ announced on 24 July.

Tritax Big Box has acquired a temperature-controlled distribution unit in the Nursling Industrial Estate in Southampton for £44.2m, it announced on Friday, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.24%. The FTSE 250 company said the building was let to Tesco on a 25-year lease expiring in January. It said the £44.2m would be financed through £24.2m of existing resources, and the issue to the seller of 12,166,930 new shares at a price of 164.38p each.

Newspaper round-up

The US government has announced it will delay enforcement of a ban on TikTok, granting the Chinese-owned social media app a temporary reprieve in its battle against the Trump administration. The popular app was facing restrictions over national security concerns that would have effectively barred it from app stores in the US. The rules were expected to take effect on Thursday. But the US commerce department said it was holding off “pending further legal developments”. - Guardian

The former business partner of the disgraced entrepreneur Gavin Woodhouse is being pursued by the Financial Conduct Authority in the high court over alleged links to care home investments in which investors appear to “have lost at least £30m”. Robin Forster, who ran Qualia Care Developments (QCD) and Qualia Care Properties (QCP) before the companies entered administration this year, is accused of running “unauthorised” collective investment schemes, which the regulator says resembled “Ponzi schemes”. – Guardian

Walt Disney has added 73.7m subscribers to its streaming service launched last year, in a bright spot for the entertainment titan which is reeling from the impact of Covid on its theme parks and studios. The California-based company said revenue fell 23pc for the three months to October 3, to $14.71bn, compared to the same period last year. Results, however, were better than an expected 26pc fall forecast by Bloomberg analysts, despite the pandemic forcing its parks to temporarily shut down and a delay in film releases over cinema closures. – Telegraph

The accountancy regulator has raised renewed concerns about the financial market’s vulnerability to the failure of one of the Big Four firms that dominate the audit market. The Financial Reporting Council, the watchdog for accountants, said it had requested detailed information from firms including Deloitte, KPMG, EY and PwC on their responses to the pandemic and financial resilience. – The Times

The state-owned airline of the Gulf state of Dubai and traditionally one of the world’s biggest money-making carriers, has plunged into deep losses. Emirates, which operates the world’s largest fleet of Airbus A380 double-decker superjumbos — although most of the 114 aircraft are grounded — reported losses of $3.8 billion for the six months to September 30 on revenues that collapsed 74 per cent to $3.7 billion. – The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks closed weaker on Thursday, as the Covid-19 vaccine rally from earlier in the week came to a screeching halt.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.08% at 29,080.17, as the S&P 500 lost 1% to 3,537.01, and the Nasdaq Composite was off 0.65% at 11,709.59.

The Dow closed 317.46 points lower on Thursday, taking a break from what has mostly been a week of heavy gains on the back of Pfizer and BioNTech's news that its vaccine candidate had shown itself to be 90% effective.

Investors remained focused on positive vaccine headlines, with Moderna announcing on Wednesday that its phase-three trial had accrued enough cases of Covid-19 to submit preliminary results to an independent safety monitoring board.

The news came as the US reached a new milestone, confirming more than 10 million cases of the coronavirus, with some areas launching new economic restrictions in an attempt to stop the spread of the outbreak.