Legal&General in first US risk transfer transaction

London open

The top flight index is seen starting the session up to 22 points higher from Thursday´s close of 6,072.47.

Stocks to watch

Legal & General America (L&G) said it has entered an agreement with the US unit of Royal Philips to provide retirement payments under a group annuity contract to 14,000 of Philips' US retirees and other former employees. The Philips deal marks L&G´s first pension risk transfer transaction in the US. L&G said Philips would transfer $900m (£600m) of pension obligations. Benefits payouts will be split equally between L&G and The Prudential Insurance Company of America.

Paragon Group has struck and agreement to acquire Five Arrows Leasing Group through its subsidiary Paragon Bank for £117m. The deal, announced Friday, is part of the bank’s strategy to provide diversification of funding sources and income streams for the group which started in 2014. In the year to 31 March 2015, Five Arrows Leasing made a pre-tax profit of £10.2m and profits after tax of £8.1m and had assets of £245.1m financed by £42.9m of shareholders' funds and a £178.0m loan from its owner Rothschild & Co.

In the press

David Cameron flew back from the Caribbean island of Grenada on Thursday and into the familiar signs of an autumn political storm brewing: the traditional Conservative conference row over Europe. Lord Lawson, the former Tory chancellor, declared that it was “increasingly clear” that the prime minister would fail to deliver any significant reforms in his EU renegotiation, currently moving sluggishly through the machine in Brussels. – Financial Times

The UK's financial watchdog has issued proposals that may enable UK banks to draw a line under the payment protection insurance (PPI) scandal that has cost them billions of pounds in compensation to customers. The Financial Conduct Authority plans to launch a consultation on setting a deadline for PPI complaints, Naomi Rovnick writes. That deadline would fall two years after the rule comes into force which is not anticipated before the spring of 2016. – Financial Times

Worldpay is on track to be Britain’s biggest share offering for at least four years. The payments processing group, a former RBS division, formally announced its pricing yesterday, putting a value of between £4.5bn and £5.2bn on it when it floats next month. When debt is considered World Pay’s enterprise value could hit as much as £6.7 billion. The shares will be priced between 225p to 260p.

US close

Wall Street struggled for direction on Thursday, as investors digested a raft of mixed economic data.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 13 points to 16,272.01, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were four and 12 points higher respectively.

US manufacturers grew in September at their slowest pace in over two years, figures released on Thursday showed. The Institute for Supply Management revealed its manufacturing index declined from 51.1 to 50.2 in August, falling below the 50.6 reading analysts had expected.