Could the John Laing story end happily after all? Since it acquired the construction group four years ago, fund manager Henderson Global Investors has always argued its investment will come good in the end. This weekend, we got the first indication it just might.

It all kicked off with a brief report on Thursday in the trade publication Infrastructure Journal, which said John Laing was planning the launch of a listed infrastructure fund, to be floated on the London Stock Exchange by the end of the year.