THE DAILY BRIEFING

■ LLOYDS DEAL Investment firm Blackrock has won the right to manage £30bn for Lloyds Bank. The portfolio is part of Lloyds’ £109bn Scottish Widows pension book, which was looked after by asset manager Standard Life aberdeen. The remaining £79bn is still up for grabs to manage.

■ CHAIRMAN SWOOPS The chairman of drinks behemoth Diageo has spent more than £760,000 on buying stock in the business. javier Ferran snapped up 30,000 shares for 2525p each. The 62-year- old has chaired the maker of Gordon’s gin and johnnie Walker whisky since january last year. Diageo shares rose 0.7pc, or 17.5p, to 2541p.

■ LEAVING PRU The boss of Prudential’s North american arm is retiring at the end of the year, after four decades in the industry. Barry Stowe, 60, will be replaced in the job by Michael Falcon, who runs the asian asset management business of Wall Street bank jP Morgan.

■ FINANCE OFFICER Video game seller Game has appointed ray Kavanagh as its chief financial officer. The 50-year-old has served as the interim finance head since june, after 53-year-old predecessor Mark Gifford stood down. Kavanagh has spent two years on the board of department chain House of Fraser and has more than 20 years of retail experience.

■ AUDITOR ATTACKED Tainted bean counter KPMG is under fresh attack in South africa after a damning report on former client VBS bank. KPMG gave VBS a clean bill of health last year – but it collapsed in March, and a report has claimed the lender was ‘rotten to the core’.

■ FLOAT HIT The largest self-storage company in Europe is to float for less than hoped after a global sell-off roiled the markets. Shurgard will go public with a value of £1.8bn next week on the Euronext exchange in Brussels. It had initially been hoping for a value of up to £2.1bn.