Close Brothers selling retail finance division, Wetherspoon posts profits slightly ahead of forecasts

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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 27 points higher on Friday, having closed down 0.43% at 7,281.57 on Thursday.

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Close Brothers has announced the sale of its retail point of sale finance business, Close Brothers Retail Finance, to Swedish payment solutions group Klarna for an undisclosed sum. The disposal of the business, which provides unsecured finance to consumers through retailers, is expected to complete in the current calendar year, subject to regulatory approval and other customary conditions. Close Brothers said the business does not provide a long-term fit with its predominantly secured business model.

AstraZeneca and its global biologics research and development arm MedImmune announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Lumoxiti (moxetumomab pasudotox-tdfk) for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory hairy cell leukaemia (HCL) who had received at least two prior systemic therapies, including treatment with a purine nucleoside analogue. The FTSE 100 drugmaker said the phase III trial results demonstrated 75% of patients receiving Lumoxiti achieved an overall response, with 30% having a durable complete response.

JD Wetherspoon reported profits slightly ahead of forecasts, while boss Tim Martin again used the results release to call for a free-trade Brexit. The pub group generated £1.69bn of revenue in the 52 weeks to 29 July, up 4.2% on last year with like-for-like-sales up 5.0%. Profit before tax rose 6.2% to £107.2m.

Newspaper round-up

The Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive has been accused of withholding information from MPs investigating the bank’s mistreatment of small businesses. In a frosty exchange with Nicky Morgan, the Treasury committee chair, Ross McEwan rejected the suggestion that he had misled MPs at an evidence session into heavily criticised practices at the lender’s Global Restructuring Group. – Guardian

Travellers who renew their passports face losing up to nine months’ validity due to a little-publicised change to rules brought in by the Home Office. Up until last week, when British citizens renewed their passports, time remaining on the existing document was added to the new one – up to a maximum of nine months. But passport applicants have been told this no longer applies and any remaining months will be lost if an attempt is made to renew the document early. – Guardian

MPs have launched a fresh attack on the Government's system for monitoring risky public sector contracts in the wake of Carillion's collapse. Rachel Reeves and Frank Field, the respective heads of the business and work & pensions select committees, hit out at the Government's apparent refusal to review the use of so-called Crown Representatives, which they said had had the "wool pulled over their eyes" by the doomed outsourcer's bosses. – Telegraph

German insurer Allianz has bought a 3.5pc stake, worth an estimated £18.7m, in the electric-powered racing series Formula E according to documents recently filed by its Hong Kong-based parent company. Allianz raced into Formula E in February last year after putting the brakes on its partnership with Formula One. It started off as a Formula E sponsor which gave it branding at races in cities such as Berlin, Paris and New York. – Telegraph

House prices would fall by 35 per cent over three years after a chaotic no-deal Brexit, according to a stark briefing given to the cabinet by the Bank of England governor yesterday. Mark Carney told senior ministers that spiralling mortgage rates would cause a crash in the housing market. – The Times

Hundreds of staff at the Financial Conduct Authority spent an afternoon learning African drumming earlier this week, just hours after the City Regulator’s chairman warned about the pressure on its budget. About 400 FCA staff spent several hours on Tuesday afternoon at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in London learning the use of drums as part of a corporate away day. – The Times

US close

Trading on Wall Street finished on a positive note on Thursday, with shares of Apple well into the green the way as investors welcomed the latest developments between the US and China on the trade front.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was ahead 0.57% at 26,145.99, the S&P 500 added 0.53% to 2,904.18, and the Nasdaq 100 was 0.98% higher at 7,561.69.

Trade relations remained in focus after US officials invited China to new trade talks, which the Chinese foreign ministry welcomed.

“A collective sigh of relief across financial markets and investors has been noticed following the latest reports that the United States has proposed fresh trade talks with China,” said FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga.

"While this is not the first time there has been optimism around negotiations between Washington and Beijing.

“The talks are overall a positive step that both sides are willing to diffuse tensions between the two largest economies in the world.”