LONDON: Britain’s FTSE 100 index opened 11 to 12 points lower, or down 0.2 percent, on Thursday trade.
The UK blue chip index closed 0.4 percent higher at 6,919.24 points in the previous session.
The company reported a 16 percent jump in pretax profits for 2014 to 517.1 million pounds ($787.28 million), boosted by 24.8 billion in net inflows.
The LSE reported a 19 percent jump in adjusted full-year pretax profit, helped by a flurry of stock market listings last year, its busiest for initial public offerings in seven years.
The company says: Total dividend 27.12 pence per share, final dividend 17.74 pence per share, encouraging start to 2015. Expects underlying trading profit to be broadly in line with last year.
The company reported a 38 percent rise in pre-tak profits.
The insurer reported a 6 percent rise in 2014 operating profit, in line with market expectations, and warned it had more work to do to complete a turnaround in its performance.
The company announced a strong annual result with group profit before tax of 357 million pounds ($543.53 million) for the year to December 2014.
Online gambling company Betfair hiked its full-year profit forecast range after it said trading had remained strong following a better-than-expected third-quarter performance.
