A cheeky website about deals, dealmakers and anything else I find interesting. Edited by Ben Harrington. If you have a tip, want to discuss a story or have a subscription enquiry please feel free to email Betaville at [email protected]. Betaville can also be reached at Whats App, Signal or Telegram. Betaville's Twitter handle is @bharringtonw11 and you can message me via Twitter with stories.
Thursday, 12 April 2018, 10:34 pm
Sad news: Iain Dey, business editor of The Sunday Times, is leaving business journalism for the world of financial PR.
His departure from the trade follows a long line of Betaville's former Telegraph colleagues - such as Damian Reece, James Quinn and Jonathan Sibun - joining the somewhat better paid (and, I suspect, better hours) world of corporate communications...
Read more...
Wednesday, 11 April 2018, 9:50 pm
Betaville is another grump. After getting wind late in the day about an impending £1 billion takeover of bus and rail company First Group the company decided to announce an approach from American private equity house Apollo. Below is a link to First Group's announcement:..
Read more...
Tuesday, 10 April 2018, 7:29 pm
Interesting story from rivals over Bloomberg about Global Infrastructure Partners looking to sell its stake in Gatwick Airport for I suspect quite a lot of money (think billions and billions). Below is a link:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-10/gip-is-said-to-consider-sale-of-its-stake-in-gatwick-airport..
Read more...
Monday, 9 April 2018, 10:01 pm
Still following the travails at WPP?
If so, then Alistair Osborne's column in The Times from Saturday is well worth a read. I have pasted the link below:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sorrell-and-the-sorry-mess-at-wpp-mx63nbhk5?shareToken=4e167b1571c93da6830bfc00ee481311..
Read more...
Saturday, 7 April 2018, 4:41 pm
Did anybody else notice that Jos Sclater, GKN's chief financial officer, sold almost £60,000 worth of shares yesterday?
Below is a link to the RNS on the share sale, which shows he sold 13,899 shares at £4.30:
https://www.investegate.co.uk/gkn-plc--gkn-/prn/director-pdmr-shareholding/20180406131642P3F44/..
Read more...
Friday, 6 April 2018, 9:40 am
I see former colleague Alistair Osborne, now business commentator surpremo at The Times, has picked up on Liberum's note about the possbility of WPP spinning off its Kantar market research division...
Read more...
Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersWednesday, 4 April 2018, 8:22 pm
Betaville IntelligenceWednesday, 4 April 2018, 3:48 pm
Advertising giant WPP is in the headlines today and not necessarily for the right reasons:
https://www.investegate.co.uk/wpp-plc--wpp-/rns/independent-investigation/201804040700027165J/
In fact, it was the venerable Wall Street Journal that broke the news last night about the independent investigation into Sir Martin...
Read more...
Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersTuesday, 3 April 2018, 5:42 pm
Saturday, 31 March 2018, 11:45 am
Anil Agarwal is now allowed to bid for Anglo American.
Now, to be clear Betaville has no idea whether the wily mining tycoon, who chairs Vedanta Resources, is actually planning to bid for Anglo American...
Read more...
Betaville IntelligenceWednesday, 28 March 2018, 3:47 pm
Hat tip to Betaville's friends over at The Insurance Insider who just about managed to publish their scoop about the Hanover Insurance Group preparing to sell Lloyd's of London insurer Chaucer for up to $1 billion...
Read more...
Wednesday, 28 March 2018, 1:56 pm
Betaville is in a grump. Why? Well, this website prides itself on breaking the top M&A scoops but unfortunately I completely missed the exclusive about Takeda weighing a £35 billion takeover bid for FTSE 100-listed Shire...
Read more...
Tuesday, 27 March 2018, 7:08 pm
Anyone reading the maintream financial press could be forgiven for thinking that it's the end of the road for Greenhill, an M&A boutique that blazed a trail back in the 90s and early noughties by advising on some of the biggest takeover deals in the US and the UK.
In fact, below is a link to recent Bloomberg piece on the firm's recent demise to 52nd on the advisory league tables:..
Read more...
Tuesday, 27 March 2018, 11:13 am
Take a bow Dan Dunkley (who as far as I'm aware is down in New Zealand somewhere).
Dan, who Betaville had the pleasure of working with at several publications, last year revealed in The Sunday Times that GlaxoSmithKline was preparing to buy out its joint venture partner, Novartis, to get control of their consumer healthcare division. Below is a link to Dan's piece:..
Read more...
Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersMonday, 26 March 2018, 9:35 am
Friday, 23 March 2018, 11:04 am
Audioboom, the podcast platform backed by property developer Nick Candy, said to be close to completing the £135 million fundraising it needs to fund its merger with US rival Triton Digital...
Read more...
Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersWednesday, 21 March 2018, 3:00 pm
Wednesday, 21 March 2018, 10:37 am
Ping! An email arrives from a friendly market observer who has picked on the fact that Simon Rowlands, a senior advisor to private equity firm Cinven, has been buying shares in takeover target Spire Healthcare. I have pasted the link to today's RNS announcement below, which shows Rowlands paid around 218p a share for 114,000 shares:..
Read more...
Tuesday, 20 March 2018, 9:19 am
I see the Colombia Threadneedle has finally decided to make a decision to back GKN (I have pasted the link below to the excellent article in today's The Times).
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/city-grandee-boosts-gkn-in-bid-battle-hqvz6db2f..
Read more...
Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersMonday, 19 March 2018, 4:26 pm
[Disclaimer - the information on Betaville does not consitute any form of investment recommendation and is not intended to be relied upon by readers in making, or refraining from, any investment decisions].