Markets

J.P. Morgan Asset Management has hired Andrew Larkin, formerly head of strategic partnerships at Neptune, as it refocuses its sales team on its most important clients.

Old Mutual Global Investors is to launch a multi-asset range, offering a range of risk and return profiles, in February next year.

Brooks Macdonald has signed an option agreement to acquire Levitas Investment Management for up to £24m.

Ratings agency Standard & Poor's has retained an AAA sovereign credit rating for the UK but says there is still a one in three chance of a downgrade next year.

Markets have rallied today following the Federal Reserve's move to scale back its quantitative easing programme as the US economy recovers.

The FTSE 100 climbed in early trading in line with other major equity markets as the US Federal Reserve moved to taper its bond buying programme.

Deputy chief executive Andrew Laing has sold 1.17m shares in Aberdeen Asset Management two weeks after Martin Gilbert and Hugh Young also sold a large proportion of their holdings.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) has begun contacting clients of failed firm Tailormade, which was a major distributor of troubled overseas property company Harlequin Property.

Scottish taxpayers will have to pay out £1.6bn a year to fund initiatives set out in the white paper on the country's independence which have not yet been allocated cash, according to Treasury figures.

Neil Woodford is to join forces with investment firm Oakley Capital when he leaves Invesco Perpetual next April.