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.
Aim-listed Flowgroup is working on a plan to launch a deeply discounted £28 equity fundraising in case talks to sell its energy division falter.
Earlier this year Flowgroup said it plans to sell Flow Energy, Flowgroup's household gas and electricity supply business, and talks with a prefered bidder are understood to have progressed to an advanced stage...
There is a good tale from team Bloomborg knocking around the wires this morning about one of the City's favourite sandwich shops, Pret a Manger, hiring banks for an IPO. Here is the link in case you missed it:
Clearly, MySquar was worth watching - shares in Myanmar social media company leapt another 42pc to just over 4p today...
Oh look - I see UK Oil and Gas Investments has confirmed Betaville's Intelligence piece from earlier today. Here is the link in case you missed it:
Aim-listed UK Oil and Gas Investments is said to be in the process of carrying out a £6m equity fundraising.
Sources familiar with the matter said UK Oil and Gas Investments - also is known as the "Gatwick Gusher" following its claim it had found an oil field of "national significance" a few miles from Gatwick airport in 2015 - is working with brokers at Cenkos on a placing with a view to raising around £6 million from investors...
The football scores are in (also known as the HSBC Hedge weekly returns). And it would appear the Odey European Fund has crept back onto the top 20 loserboard - Crispin's flagship fund is now down 7.82pc for the year to April 21, 2017, according to HSBC.
The news comes after The Sunday Times Rich List, compiled by the excellent Robert Watts, revealed last weekend that the charming buffer had slipped down that particular league table, losing £125 million last year...
Shares in Aim-listed MySquar, the Burmese social media platform, were on another a tear today, surging almost 50pc to 2.75p...
FTSE 250-listed transport company Go-Ahead Group is said to be vulnerable to a takeover approach following a series of profit warnings.
Corporate advisers to bus and rail operator Go-Ahead have told Betaville's sources the company has received several takeover approaches in the recent past, so the business is wary about its current situation as the share price has fallen by 30pc over the last twelve months...
There weren't too many M&A scoops in the business sections this weekend but having worked for The Sunday Times, the Mail on Sunday and The Sunday Telegraph I know how some weeks it can be extremely tough digging out humdinger deal jackanories. They are a bit like buses - you wait for ages and then suddenly three come along in one go...
The Guardian has just announced that Graham Ruddick, a former colleague during our time at The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph, has been made the newspaper's Media Editor. Here is the link:
Oh look - I see Pembridge Resources this afternoon confirmed Monday's tale about the fundraising.
Below is the link in case you missed it but those really interested in the fundraising will be down the Mint Leaf curry house munching on a Korma, Madras or Vindaloo. ..
Welcome back Derek Sach. Little old Betaville understands that since April 2015 the former head of Royal Bank of Scotland’s discredited and disbanded restructuring unit - GRG - has been quietly working away at CVC, Britain's largest private equity firm...
Pembridge Resources, the AIM-listed company formerly known as China Africa Resources, is expected to launch its fundraising roadshaw tomorrow.
And little old Betaville understands David Linsley, the company's newish chief executive, has introduced a rather novel format for the roadshow...
There were a couple of pieces that caught my eye in today's Sunday newspaper business sections.
Most intriguing was a comment piece written by Iain Dey, business editor of The Sunday Times, about how Exxon Mobil might rekindle its interest in FTSE 100-listed oil giant BP. Regular Betaville readers will know this is a topic little old Betaville has broached in the past. Anyway, if you missed Iain's excellent column I have pasted the link below:..
Charming hedgie Crispin Odey is still struggling to turn things around at his Odey European Fund. According to the latest hedge fund rankings from HSBC, the Brexiteer's flagship fund is down just over 6.19pc for the year to date...
It's been a while since market particpants theorised about what Anheuser-Busch Inbev, the world's biggest brewer, would do next. I guess that's to be expected following ABI's £75 billion acquisition of FTSE 100 beer giant SAB Miller last year...
The move by Open Britain to unseat prominent Tory pro-Brexit MPs appears to have backfired. The advocacy group's Tory backers, such as Anna Soubry and Nick Morgan, have announced they have quit Open Britain.
Here is a link to a (free) piece in The Guardian: ..
Bryce Elder - the financial hack who broke the story Kraft Heinz's £130 billion bid for Unilever - over at the Financial Times was talking about Wix today as a takeover target for Cisco on Markets Live this morning.
Well, I would just like to point out that little old Betaville brought up Wix as a potential takeover target a couple of weeks ago on Tip TV. In case you missed it, here is a link:..
I see US-based Sandwich maker AdvancePierre Foods and Tyson Foods have just announced a deal that will the latter buy the former for $4.2 billion.
News of the deal won't come as a surprise to subscribers of the Betaville Intelligence platform as last week's RARE story on AdvancePierre Foods highlighted how the company is likely to be involved in an imminent M&A transaction.
In case you missed it, here is a link to the Betaville Intelligence platform:..
[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].