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London’s silver miners climbed on Friday morning as investors looked for ways to play the precious metal as it settled above $60 an ounce (oz) this week.

Thursday saw further buying following the US Federal Reserve interest rate cut. London has a handful of miners heavily exposed to the metal, which is largely mined as a byproduct. Fresnillo (FRES), Hochschild Mining (HOC) and Endeavour Mining (EDV) all climbed on Friday morning. Hochschild, which has gold and silver mines in Peru and Brazil, rose 8 per cent, while Fresnillo was up 5 per cent and Endeavour 3 per cent.

Silver has emerged as a popular trade for DIY investors this year, looking for alternative exposure to gold. It largely follows the senior metal’s moves, but also has industrial demand far beyond gold.

“Having spent much of the past decade oscillating between being perceived as a monetary metal and an industrial input, silver finally resolved that identity crisis this year by being both at the same time – just as supply constraints became impossible to ignore,” said Saxo head of commodity strategy Ole Hansen on Wednesday.

Capita (CPI) has agreed to hand back its final two legacy closed-book life and pensions contracts to Royal London, marking the end of one of the outsourcers’ most problematic divisions. The shares rose 1.6 per cent to 403p.

The deal covers Royal London’s remaining legacy business, with Capita making an initial payment of around £22.5mn. There is an option for the payment to be settled using 5.67mn Capita shares, representing around 5 per cent of the group’s issued capital.

Capita will also make another three ÂŁ10mn payments over the three anniversaries after the migration completes, which is expected to take five years. The migration itself is expected to cost ÂŁ20mn per year for a total of around ÂŁ100mn. While painful, the exit is set to remove a long-standing drag on cash flow.

In a separate trading update, the group said its largest public services business grew 4 per cent in the 11 months to 30 November, while the contact centre division fell 18.3 per cent. The pension solutions unit grew 1.5 per cent, while regulated services, which includes Life & Pensions, fell 14.3 per cent.

The company also guided for full-year public services revenue growth to be slightly below mid-single-digit, with a high-teen decline in contact services and low single-digit growth in pension solutions. Guidance on margin improvement, free cash flow (including the ÂŁ14mn ICO settlement) and debt are unchanged.

The board of copper and gold hopeful SolGold (SOLG) gave the reins to Paul Smith and Dan Vujcic earlier this year with the intention of finding a buyer for the company, which owns the Cascabel project in Ecuador. They have achieved this within 12 months, agreeing a 28p-per-share cash deal with Jiangxi Copper, already the largest shareholder with a 12 per cent stake. The share price was 6p when they came on board, after the company’s market value slumped from a recent high of 38p in April 2022.

Despite the mining world’s copper mania, a buyout was seen as difficult because of the blocking stakes held by BHP (BHP) and Newmont (US:NEM), both with around 10 per cent. Previous management also sold off future sales to fund development costs, which will be significant. 

But Smith and Vujcic, chair and chief executive respectively, have managed to bring everyone to the table, with BHP and Newmont backing the buyout. Jiangxi first came forward with a possible offer in late November, at 26p. The 2p increase was enough to get it over the line.

North Sea giant Harbour Energy (HBR) has added to its holdings in the UK continental shelf through the $170mn (£127mn) acquisition of assets from Waldorf, a private company in administration. This includes 40 per cent of the Catcher field, which Harbour already operated with a 50 per cent stake, and 29.5 per cent of the Kraken field, which is operated by EnQuest (ENQ). The deal will also see Harbour absorb Waldorf’s tax losses.

Harbour has very publicly shifted investment out of the UK over what it has said are onerous fiscal conditions, culminating in the combination with Wintershall DEA’s Norwegian assets. “This transaction is an important step for Harbour in the UK North Sea, building on the action we’ve already taken to sustain our position in the basin given the ongoing fiscal and regulatory challenges,” said Scott Barr, managing director of Harbour’s UK business unit.