Hope for prudential as stocks soar

In London today at 12.18pm the FTSE 100 gained 84.07 points at 4147.08. However the FTSE 250 was sliding down 11.25 points at 6299.58.

Prudential was doing well on the FTSE 100, and gained 37.25p or 13.8 percent at 307.25p this comes as talks that prudential were setting themselves up to buy the Asian assets of AIG, the American insurance giant who has fallen victim to the credit crunch.

If the deal goes through it is believed that for the sovereign investment funds Prudential could end up with £1.2 billion for the purchase in return for around a 15-20 percent stake in AIG.

Prudential figures are due out tomorrow and should end the speculation as to the position of the insurance company as traders have said they are confident about them, although skeptics have said although Prudential will be keen to buy the Asian arm of AIG, that Pru would find it hard to fund the deal, as Pru’s market capitalization after its fall last week now only stands at 6.6 billion.

Source: independent