Vanquis announces new finance chief, PureTech appoints chief portfolio officer

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 14 points lower on Wednesday, having closed up 0.02% on Tuesday at 7,625.72.

Stocks to watch

Biotherapeutics company PureTech Health has appointed the boss of Arix Bioscience as its new chief portfolio officer. Robert Lyne, who has a decade of experience in international life science deals and portfolio management, along with governance and executive team leadership experience, will join the company in January 2024.

Vanquis Banking Group announced the appointment of Dave Watts as its new chief financial officer on Wednesday, effective November, pending regulatory approval. It said Watts would bring nearly 30 years of experience from HSBC, where he held significant CFO positions, including CFO of HSBC UK Bank between 2017 and 2021. Gareth Cronin, Vanquis’s interim CFO, would resume his duties as group chief risk officer.

Gambling company Flutter Entertainment said it had bought a 51% stake in Serbia's MaxBet for €141m (£123m), with an option to acquire the remaining 49% in 2029 based on performance. MaxBet is the number 2 Serbian operator with an estimated 20% online share. It has more than 400 retail outlets across four markets and 95,000 online average monthly players, Flutter said on Wednesday.

Newspaper round-up

The number of first-time buyers in the UK has fallen by more than a fifth, while homes in need of renovation are most in demand as buyers look for cheaper properties, in the latest evidence that people are struggling with higher mortgage costs. There were 22% fewer first-time buyers between January and August compared with the same period last year, according to the mortgage lender Halifax. They still accounted for more than half (53%) of all home loans agreed in the first eight months of this year, similar to a year earlier (52%). – Guardian

Scrapping inheritance tax would cost the government almost £15bn a year in lost revenue by 2032, according to analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that follows calls from Tory MPs for the main tax on inherited wealth to be abolished. The thinktank said the latest figures from HMRC showed fewer than 4% of estates paid inheritance tax (IHT) in 2020–21, but the rapid growth in wealth among older individuals meant this number was set to rise to more than 7% over the next decade. – Guardian

The Financial Times is considering scrapping its print newspaper in some countries around the globe as its traditional readership continues to decline. The City broadsheet said it was considering whether to maintain its print edition in various locations amid a “volatile and fragile” market. The company, which shuttered its own UK printworks last year, said a comprehensive review had been carried out in 2022, taking into account factors such as reduction in circulation and the impact on subscribers and advertising. – Telegraph

The US Federal Trade Commission has accused Amazon of wielding monopoly power to inflate prices and stifle innovation in a landmark lawsuit taking aim at Big Tech’s dominance of the internet The claim by the antitrust watchdog, which was joined by 17 state attorneys general, follows a four-year investigation into complaints that Amazon and other giant tech groups abused their dominance of search, social media and online retailing to become gatekeepers of commerce on the web. – The Times

The developer of ChatGPT, the generative artificial intelligence chatbot, is reportedly talking to investors about a potential share sale that would value the company at between $80 billion and $90 billion. The valuation would be almost triple what the company was worth after a share sale just eight months ago and would make OpenAI one of the most valued start-ups globally, behind Elon Musk’s SpaceX and ByteDance, which owns the social media platform TikTok. – The Times

US close

Wall Street faced a challenging Tuesday, with major stock indices taking a hit due to rising concerns about hawkish statements from Federal Reserve officials and worries over escalating interest rates.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 1.14%, ending the day at 33,618.88.

Similarly, the S&P 500 recorded a decline of 1.47%, settling at 4,273.53, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.57% to close at 13,063.61.

On the currency front, the dollar was stable against sterling at 82.25p, while it slipped 0.01% on the euro to 94.58 euro cents.

The greenback also faced a slight dip of 0.05% against the yen, changing hands at JPY 149.00.