Shares in parcel locker group InPost have surged by 13.5% after a consortium led by FedEx Corporation and private equity firm Advent has agreed to buy the company for €7.8bn (£6.8 billion).

The bidders have offered €15.60 a share for Polish-headquartered InPost, and have plans to expand further across the UK and Europe.

In the UK, the group is looking to more than double the locker points to 30,000 from 14,000 currently, while it also has 5,500 pick-up and drop-off points.

InPost’s shares have quickly jumped over the €15 mark.

Shares in banking group NatWest have dropped over 5% after it agreed to buy Evelyn Partners, one of the UK’s biggest wealth managers.

NatWest will pay £2.7bn for Evelyn Partners, a move which will boost its wealth management arm

Evelyn Partners, formerly known as Tilney Smith & Williamson, controls about £69bn of client assets and offers financial planning and wealth management across the UK and Ireland.

The company traces its roots back to 1836 when Thomas Tilney created his eponymous stock brokerage in the City of London. Tilney was bought by Permira in 2014, before acquiring the 145-year-old Glasgow-based investment company Smith & Williamson in 2019, and rebranding to its current name three years later, my colleague Alex Daniel reports.

Sterling is dropping this morning after the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, increased the pressure on the prime minister.

The pound has fallen by half a eurocent to €1.146, the lowest since 22 January.

It’s also marginally lower (-0.12%) against the US dollar, unwinding a smidgen of Friday’s rally.

UK bond yields are slightly higher, mirroring a move in US Treasuries.

The yield, or interest rate, on 10-year UK bonds is up two basis points at 4.539% (a small move, but one that pushes up the cost of Britain’s borrowing, slightly).

Mohit Kumar, economist at Jefferies, says:

In the UK, political pressure on PM Starmer is mounting which is weighing on UK assets

Thomas Mathews, head of markets, Asia Pacific, at Capital Economics, has predicted that “calm may be on the way for Japan’s markets now the election is out of the way”.

Mathews doesn’t expect a further sell-off in Japanese government bonds (JGBs) and also forecasts a stronger yen, saying:

Japan’s debt position is actually on a better trajectory than many other countries’. And with the election now out of the way, it’s not obvious to us that Takaichi actually will deliver significant extra fiscal stimulus.

The big, BIG, question is whether Japan’s bond market will support Sanae Takaichi’s economic stimulus plans.

So far today, the yield (or interest rate) on 10-year Japanese bonds has risen by 6 basis points (0.06 percentage points) to 2.282% as bond traders react to the news Takaichi’s LDP party and its coalition partner have won a supermajority in Tokyo’s upper house.

The yield on 30-year Japanese bonds has risen too, by 4bps, to 3.55%.

That indicates some jitters in the bond market about the prospect of more debt-fuelled spending as Takaichi tries to spur Japan’s economy and tackle its cost of living crisis.

Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, say Takaichi is now “untouchable”, adding:

Takaichi’s election bet has paid off, and she now has a clear mandate to pursue her agenda, which could have market ramifications. All eyes are on the bond market.

Takaichi, like Andy Burnham, is not in hock to the bond market. She has threatened to cut taxes and boost spending even though Japan’s debt to GDP ratio is 250%.

Japan’s top currency official has said the government remains on high alert as it monitors the foreign exchange market.

Atsushi Mimura, the finance ministry’s vice minister for international affairs, spoke out after the yen initially came under renewed pressure following prime minister Sanae Takaichi’s victory in Sunday’s snap election.

Mimura told reporters:

“As always, we are watching market developments with a high sense of urgency.

We remain in close communication with the market.”

Those comments will have helped the yen to strengthen, as markets will anticipate that Tokyo policymakers will act, if necessary, if the yen weakens too much (towards that ¥160/$ line in the sand).

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.

Political drama will be on investors’ minds today, as they react to a landmark election in Tokyo and mounting pressure on UK prime minister Keir Starmer.

The yen has strengthened after Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi won a sweeping victory in Sunday’s election, ending a six-day run of losses.

The Japanese stock market has rocketed to a new high too, as investors welcome the prospect of more stimulus.

Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic party (LDP) has won an absolute majority in Japan’s lower house, and with her coalition partner, the Japan Innovation party, Takaichi now has a supermajority of two-thirds of seats.

This will smooth the way for Takaichi to push through a 21tn yen (£99bn) stimulus package, and her pledge to suspend Japan’s 8% sales tax on food for two years.

Those plans had rattled financial markets and caused currency volatility during the election campaign, but there’s now relief that Japan’s political uncertainty appears to be over.

ING say the LDP’s landslide victory in Japan is positive for risk assets, even though her policies could raise Japan’s borrowing levels even higher:

Prime minister Takaichi’s decision to leverage her popularity for her party turned out to be successful.

The landslide victory will reinforce her responsible but expansionary fiscal spending and a more Japan-focused foreign policy. Risk-on sentiment will dominate the market for now.

Japan’s Nikkei share average surged to a record high on Monday, after the election results, surpassing the 56,000 level for the first time at the start of trading. It quickly pushed through the 57,000 point mark, before closing up 3.9% at 56,363 points.

The agenda

• Noon BST: European Central Bank chief economist Philip Lane gives lecture at Maynooth University

• 4pm BST: ECB presidnt Christine Lagarde participates in plenary debate on the state of the EU economy and ECB activities in Strasbourg, France