L&G sees no Brexit hitch, Rio Tinto exits Papua New Guinea

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to mark a third up-day with a 12 point rise on Thursday morning, according to pre-market trading.

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Legal & General said it made that £4bn of sales across bulk annuities, individual annuities and lifetime mortgages in the first half, as it felt little disruption from the uncertainty around the EU Referendum. L&G, which entered the lifetime mortgage market last year, said it now provides more of these to its customers than individual annuities and expects this trend to accelerate as more baby boomers retire and choose to access their housing wealth to help fund their retirement, instead of buying an individual annuity.

Rio Tinto said it was ending its involvement with Papua New Guinea by giving up ownership of the Panguna copper mine on Bougainville island which closed for around 25 years after a rebellion by secessionist. The miner said it would transfer its majority 53.8% shareholding in Bougainville Copper to an independent trustee to manage the distribution of the shares to the Autonomous Bougainville Government and Papua New Guinea.

Private equity firm 3i Group said it had no plans to dispose of its investment in Dutch discount retailer Action despite a number of approaches. “3i is actively engaged in the further development of Action and is not intending to sell its investment or organise a flotation of Action in the near future,” the company said.

Newspaper round-up

The City’s hiring market is in for a prolonged slowdown as uncertainty triggered by the Brexit vote compounds already difficult conditions for financial services. “It’s been a tough hiring environment anyway and it just got tougher,” says Dee Symons, a managing director at executive search group Russell Reynolds. “We’re in June so the next two months over the summer would typically be quiet for City hiring, Brexit or no Brexit.” – Financial Times

New Zealand has offered its top trade negotiators to the United Kingdom, relieving the British civil service as it prepares for the strain of seeking new deals with countries across the globe. The Telegraph understands that the Commonwealth country has made an offer to loan staff to the UK in a diplomatic cable sent to the British civil service, which has few trade negotiators of its own. – Telegraph

The telecoms industry plans to use the Brexit vote as a new weapon in the fight to break up BT by telling the chief executive of Ofcom that she can now act without fear of an intervention from Brussels if she chooses to split up the former monopoly. The regulator completed a lengthy review of the structure of the UK telecoms market this year that put the issue of BT’s ownership of Openreach — the engineering company that controls the national broadband network — at the centre of the debate over the future of Britain’s broadband. – The Times

US close

US stocks strode higher for the second successive day on Wednesday as the initial panic of Brexit eased and investors sought bargains, while there was mostly top grades for banks in the Federal Reserve's stress-test results after the market closed.

Recouping around half the losses from the two session immediately after the UK's decision to split from the European Union, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 284.96 points or 1.64% higher to 17,694.68 by the closing bell, while the S&P 500 rose 1.7% and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.86%.

Helping fuel the rise, oil prices continued to claw their way back towards $50 as US weekly crude oil inventories fell more than expected and as strikes by Norwegian oil and gas workers loomed.