Morning all!

JC FLOWERS & Co is among five bidders vying to buy Irish Life & Permanent’s life assurance unit, the biggest insurer of its kind in the country.

Private equity firm JC Flowers has made an offer for crisis-hit mortgage lender Northern Rock, it emerged today.

Richard Whitaker is to face the Jockey Club’s disciplinary panel on Thursday after Vicious Prince failed a drugs test at Ripon in May.

Share prices were higher in choppy trade as defensive buying in the pharmaceutical sector, gains among technology stocks and tobacco companies helped offset a weak retail sector after Sears issued a third-quarter profit warning, dealers said.