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.
Matthew Greenburgh. Remember him? Well, in case you don't, let Betaville remind you. He was a top financial institutions group banker at Merrill Lynch who advised on some the biggest takeover deals of the credit boom, including Royal Bank of Scotland's £67 billion takeover of ABN Amro...
Hat tip to Russell Lynch. Betaville stumbled across the hack's cracking scoop in today's Evening Standard business section about a Turkish tycoon's £220 million potential bid for Newcastle United Football Club on the way to, ironically, a leaving party for a hackette that's about to join the great newspaper.
Here is a link to Lynch's piece in the Evening Standard:..
I see the Commons' work and pensions committee has today posted on its website the letter it has written to The Pensions Regulator asking it to investigate the £350 million merger of Trinity Mirror and Northern and Shell Media, publisher of The Daily Express.
Here is the link to that letter - do click it on it if you want to see all the tough questions the committtee, chaired by senior MP Frank Field, has posed:..
That didn't take long. Just two years after acquiring PEI Media - publisher of one of the journals read by many of the City's bankers, lawyers and buy-out barons - Lloyds Development Capital is weighing a sale of the business...
"Posh" is a familiar name in the dealing rooms of the City of London but not just because traders are obsessed with David Beckham's wife, the former Spice Girl now called Victoria Beckham.
Posh is also a chap called Anthony Harmer, a former Winterfloods trader who worked at the firm for 17 years with the legendary market maker Spencer Crooks.
Anyway, it turns out Harmer has been snapped up by US trading giant INTL FCStone to set up its equities trading desk in London...
Here is a snippet about an upcoming deal that may be of interest to bankers, buy-out types and, especially, City laywers.
Bowmark Capital, a London-based private equity firm, has appointed bankers from DC Advisory to work on a sale of Law Business Research, which publishes journals, legal rankings and sets up events for a lawyers around the world...
Betaville hears there are some interesting negotiating tactics being used by brokers ahead of the implementation of MiFID II regulations in the New Year.
Most market participants are aware of the upcoming rule changes which will force equity research departments to charge investor clients directly for their "research". And this is causing all sorts of confusion but about how much research, in particular "equity research", is really worth to investors...
Clearly, Crispin Odey is having a rather tough time after repeatedly mis-timing his bearish calls and seeing his flagship Odey European Fund perform terribly over the last few years (see part 23).
Still, Crispin's grim performance hasn't stopped colleagues having fun...
Good to see Bob Iger, chief executive of Walt Disney Co, finally confirm to the CNBC (see the link below) the company did come close to purchasing micro blogging website Twitter.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/03/disney-ceo-bob-iger-confirms-twitter-bid.html..
I see Crispin Odey is claiming the introduction of Mifid II regulations in early 2018 combined with US Federal Reserve selling assets bought via Quantitative Easing will trigger a market rout (see below).
Well, to be honest that's not exactly what analysts at Royal Bank of Canada said. But the scribblers at the broker have indulged in a bit of fantasy M&A after claiming Dixons Carphone is vulnerable to a bid because the European electricals space has "started to consolidate"...
Once again it would appear reports of a turnaround at Crispin Odey's fund might have been a tad premature.
The HSBC hedge fund performance index just hit Betaville's inbox and it shows that, perhaps, the August "revival" at Crispin's flagship Odey European Fund was just a blip.
Indeed, the Odey European Fund is back on the HSBC top 20 loserboard, showing a decline of 14pc in 2017 by the middle of this month...
Genel's shares have leapt around 60pc since Betaville first queried why mysterious construction tycoon Hassan Gozal had built a 15pc stake via his vehicle Daax Corp in the controversial oil company in July this year.
Now, some people, in part, have pinned Genel's recent share price rally to the recent news about Rosneft investing almost $1 billion in gas pipelines in Kurdsitan...
Betaville is in a particularly good mood today because this week has seen several of this website's scoops and scoopettes confirmed by the companies involved.
First of - Aim-listed Rose Petroleum this morning confirmed yesterday's RARE Alert about the company's fundraising. I have pasted the link to the RNS statement below:..
[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].