London pre-open: All eyes on US Fed minutes

UK equities will begin the session slightly lower, weighed down by losses overnight on Wall Street after reports hit the wires of multiple bomb threats in Hannover, Germany.

Against that backdrop the Footsie is expected to start 17 points lower from Tuesday's closing level of 6,268.76, albeit following Tuesday's sharp move higher - the largest in six weeks.

The economic agenda on Wednesday is quite sparse, with traders expected to focus on the release of the minutes of the US central bank's last policy meeting, in October.

At last count, Fed funds futures were pricing in a roughly 64% probability of an interest rate hike by the US Federal Reserve.

Two Fed speakers are also scheduled to take to the podium later tonight.

In the opinion of Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, "today’s minutes will certainly give us an insight into how vigorous a debate was had and whether the misgivings articulated by permanent members Lael Brainard and

Daniel Tarullo in comments prior to the meeting in October meeting were still held by them.

Since those minutes we’ve had the best payrolls report this year, the US dollar has also risen another 2.5% to be over 13% higher year on year, while concerns still remain about the health of the US manufacturing sector which appears to be undergoing its worst period since the 2008 recession, with input prices remaining worryingly weak."

Informa to hive off two Dutch units

Informa has announced it is disposing of its two Dutch conference businesses. The FTSE 250 company announced its plans on Wednesday. The company will get rid of the two businesses based in Amsterdam and Eindhoven, as well as a small local publishing operation. The disposals are part of the company’s portfolio management strategy. It follows the recent disposal of its two Scandinavian businesses in Sweden and Denmark, as well as the previous sale of its Consumer Information business and the closure of operations in Johannesburg and Melbourne.

LondonMetric Property has acquired a 230,000 square ft distribution warehouse from a private vendor for £28.8m, which will be funded from existing resources, reflecting a net initial yield of 5.8%. The warehouse is situated in a prime distribution location on a 11.5 acre site in Reading, next to Junction 11 of the M4, and close to Tesco's 1mn sq ft regional hub. Other companies nearby include Royal Mail and Proctor & Gamble.

Hikma Pharmaceuticals said it had overcome concerns raised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over environmental monitoring issues at its Portugal plant. The FDA in October 2014 sent the company a "warning letter" flagging issues the issues. In a statement, Hikma said it had received a further letter from the FDA "closing out" the warning letter from last year.