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Germany’s Gerresheimer soared more than 12% in early trade, after the medical products and packaging producer announced it would acquire the holding company of Bormioli Pharma Group for an enterprise value of around 800 million euros ($866.32 million).

Gerresheimer said Bormioli had a complementary portfolio of pharmaceutical primary packaging in glass and plastic, and that the acquisition would strengthen its European footprint with new production sites.

U.K. aircaft engineering firm QinetiQ was also around 12% higher, after posting a 20% increase in operating profit in its full-year results.

National Grid, the operator of Britain’s power network, dropped 9% after announcing a £7 billion equity raise as it looks to invest £60 billion in the five years to 2029. It also reported an 8% decline in operating profit.

— Jenni Reid

European stocks opened slightly higher on Thursday, with the Stoxx 600 index up 0.3% at 8:18 a.m. London time.

France’s CAC 40 and Germany’s DAX were both down by 0.3%.

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 bucked the trend to slip 0.1%, as traders digested a surprise election announcement and Wednesday’s U.K. inflation figures, which curbed market expectations of a June rate cut.

— Jenni Reid

Family offices have increased their investments to developed market fixed income by the largest amount seen in five years, according to a new study by UBS.

This was among one of the major shifts seen in this survey of 320 global single family offices across seven regions — the largest family office study UBS has carried out to date.

Here’s how family offices are investing this year and how they plan to change their allocations in the next five years.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

The hawkish tone of the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest meeting indicates “higher for longer is the official mantra,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.

“Given that rate cuts are off the table, bears would normally get excited, but because Chair Powell officially took rate hikes off the table, the market is going to fluctuate based on other factors,” Zaccarelli said.

He added that Nvidia’s earnings after the bell will dictate which direction the market moves in the coming days.

— Hakyung Kim

The minutes from the Federal Reserve’s most recent meeting showed the central bank remains concerned about U.S. inflation.

“Participants observed that while inflation had eased over the past year, in recent months there had been a lack of further progress toward the Committee’s 2 percent objective,” the summary stated. “The recent monthly data had showed significant increases in components of both goods and services price inflation.”

“Various participants mentioned a willingness to tighten policy further should risks to inflation materialize in a way that such an action became appropriate,” the minutes added.

— Fred Imbert

A diversified listed private equity investment company could see its share price rise by more than 40%, according to analysts at investment banks Peel Hunt and Jefferies.

The close-ended fund has investments in high-profile private companies such as SHEIN, Figma, Databricks, Discord, and ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, among others.

It has assets worth nearly $4bn invested in over 1,000 companies.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

European markets are expected to open higher Thursday.

The U.K.’s FTSE 100 index is expected to open 1 point higher at 8,369, Germany’s DAX up 4 points at 18,681, France’s CAC 14 points higher at 8,101 and Italy’s FTSE MIB up 30 points at 34,559, according to data from IG.

Earnings are set to come from Julius Baer, Acciona, Nationwide Building Society, Rolls-Royce, Aviva and Wizz Air. Preliminary euro zone services and manufacturing activity data for May is due, as are consumer confidence figures for the single currency area.

— Holly Ellyatt