Aviva offloads Polish unit, Smiths Group hikes interim dividend

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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 53 points higher on Friday, having closed down 0.57% on Thursday at 6,674.83.

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British insurer Aviva said it had sold its Polish unit to Allianz for €2.5bn to focus on its strongest businesses in the UK, Ireland and Canada and cut debt. The divestment is Aviva’s eighth in the past eight months, and “successfully concludes the planned refocus of the group's portfolio”, the company said on Friday.

Smiths Group increased its interim dividend and said it was confident about meeting expectations for annual results after profit fell in the first half. Headline operating profit fell 11% to £166m in the six months to the end of January as revenue declined to £1.15bn from £1.24bn. Smiths increased its interim dividend by 6% to 11.7p and said trading was improving in the second half.

Oxford Instruments said it was expecting a marginal improvement in revenue on Friday, following good progress in the second half. The FTSE 250 industrial and scientific supplier said revenue was expected to be “marginally ahead” of the prior year, including a small adverse impact from currency effects. Adjusted operating profit for the year ending 31 March was anticipated to be between £55m and £57m, supported by the operating efficiencies it had implemented.

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The government has announced plans for a £1.5bn funding pot to help companies struggling with business rates following a flood of requests for support during the coronavirus pandemic. In an expansion of support across the economy, the Treasury said the new fund was designed to help firms outside the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors with the taxes they pay based on the value of the premises they occupy. - Guardian

Amazon caused an uproar on Thursday when it denied reports that its delivery workers have been forced to urinate in bottles due to lack of access to bathrooms, but a leaked internal memo shows the company has been aware of the problem for at least several months. Documents provided by employees at Amazon to the Intercept showed that an email sent in May 2020 admonished workers for urinating in bottles and defecating in bags while on the job. - Guardian

Rolls-Royce is buying enough steel from Liberty to last until Christmas to guarantee supplies in case Sanjeev Gupta's struggling empire collapses. The jet engine manufacturer is buying a relatively small amount of speciality steel and its has not revealed its value. However, the move underlined the strategic nature of Liberty, according to an industry source. - Telegraph

An electric van and bus start-up that has yet to build its first production vehicle has secured the highest valuation ever for a British company on its stock market debut. Arrival, which was founded in 2015 and is based in London, has yet to turn a profit but was valued at $13.6 billion, or almost £10 billion, when its shares began trading in New York yesterday. - The Times

Nearly a third of the world’s daily container shipping volume passes through the Suez Canal, so when a giant ship wedges itself across the width of the canal and blocks transit in both directions, there will be consequences. Last night, after three days of failed rescue attempts, the Ever Given, a container ship that is about as long as the Empire State Building is tall, remained lodged bow-to-stern in the sandy walls of the Suez. Over these three days, container cargo worth an estimated $30 billion was unable to pass through the waterway. - The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks managed a positive finish on Thursday, as a doubling of Joe Biden’s vaccination target outweighed comments from Fed chair Jerome Powell.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.62% at 32,619.48, as the S&P 500 added 0.52% to 3,909.52 and the Nasdaq Composite managed gains of 0.12% to 12,977.68.

The Dow closed 199.42 points higher on Thursday, reversing losses recorded on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell hinted at inevitably removing some of the stimulus measures that had boosted the market amid the pandemic.

Powell said congressional stimulus and accelerated vaccine distribution had afforded the economy the opportunity to bounce back faster than initially anticipated and stated that at some point, that would allow the central bank to begin pulling back on much of the help it had provided.

"As we make substantial further progress toward our goals, we'll gradually roll back the amount of Treasury [notes] and mortgage-backed securities we've bought," said Powell.