A cheeky website about deals, dealmakers and anything else I find interesting. Edited by Ben Harrington. If you have a tip or want to discuss a story please feel free to email Betaville at ben@betaville.co.uk. 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.
Who says the political crisis driven by Brexit is holding up dealmaking in the City of London?
City sources said Allied Glass - which makes bottles for Diageo whisky such as The Macallan, Grant’s and Balvenie – has been put on the market by CBPE, a private equity firm.
Bankers from Baird have been appointed to find a buyer willing to pay around £180 million for Allied Glass...
Oh look - I see Bloomberg has just published a "scoop" about Cox & Kings appointing bankers from Lazard to find a buyer for Meininger Hotels, the Berlin-based budget hotel chain. Below is a link:
There is a young financial hack in the London market who is fast distinguishing himself with some excellent journalism.
His name is William Turvill of the Mail on Sunday and rival business journalists from Financial News were on Twitter yesterday praising one a recent interview with Savvas Savouri, the blunt but amusing economist from Toscafund...
It's turning out to be one of the busiest Augusts in M&A land for quite some time.
US-listed tobacco giants Philip Morris International and Altria have just announced they are in talks about a $210 billion merger of the cigarette makers.
Over in the UK there have been multi-billion pound bids for Peppa Pig creator Entertainment One and pub company Greene King during what is typically considered the quietest months of the year for takeover transactions...
It would appear Betaville spoke (or is it wrote) too soon about the current lack of summer football M&A stories involving top-end Premier League clubs.
Just a few days after Betaville's piece earlier in the week the The Times sports writers landed a rather good scoop about an American outfit's attempt to buy Sunderland. Below is the link to a follow up piece by in the venerable Financial Times:..
Sierra Wireless, the Nasdaq-listed wireless equipment designer, is rumoured to have rekindled merger talks with Telit Communications, the Aim-listed internet of things company.
People following the situation claimed the recent bout of talks come after Sierra Wireless, which is based in Canada, last year looked at buying part and all of Telit...
Shares in NMC Health, the gulf-based hospital company, are up around 30pc this morning and some readers might be wondering why.
Well, the company is one of the most shorted stocks in the London market but this morning the FTSE 250-listed group announced unveiled half-year figures and a $200 million share buyback programme...
I see former colleague Mark, "the Kleinmanator", Kleinman of Sky News has just published a rather interesting piece about Interserve, a company I have written about recently on Betaville and in the Mail on Sunday's business section (below are the links).
https://www.betaville.co.uk/news/interserve-poised-to-be-put-on-the-block-sources/..
It's about that time of the year when some intrepid hack digs out a top Premier League football club takeover scoop.
Indeed, this time last year friends and colleagues on the The Sunday Times business section unveiled Roman Abramovich had appointed advisers from American boutique firm Raine to find a buyer for all or some of Chelsea Football Club. Below is the link:..
PHS, the washroom servces giant, is being prepared for sale by the vulture funds that own the business.
Sources familiar with the matter said advisers from Deutsche Bank have been appointed to carry out a "strategic review" and it could be worth between £500 million and £600 million.
A sale process could kick off in September, said these sources familiar with the matter...
Cox & Kings, the embattled Indian travel group, is said to have appointed bankers from Lazard to find a buyer for budget hostel chain Meininger Hotels.
People with knowledge of the situation said advisers from Lazard had reached out to several private equity firms on behalf of Cox & Kings to see whether they might be interested in purchasing Meininger Hotels from the travel business, which is listed in India...
It took a few hours but Equals Group finally confirmed yesterday's RARE ALERT about the potential multi-million pound equity fundraising.
Admittedly, Betaville might been out by a few million pounds (around £9 million to be precise) but the general thrust of the piece was on the money (no pun intended).
Anyway, below is a link to the confirmation from Equals Group:..
Equals Group, the London-listed banking and payments company, is said to be preparing to tap up investors for fresh equity capital ahead of another multi-million pound takeover deal.
People claiming to be familiar with the matter said Equals Group is looking to raise around £5 million, possibly via a placing of new stock with investors.
The new stock could be placed at between 105p a share and 120p a share, said people claiming to be familiar with the matter...
Here is something that reminded little old Betaville of the pre financial crisis / credit boom era: Robert Tchenguiz building substantial stakes in British publicly-listed companies.
Such a phenomenon hasn't happened since the colourful businessman and property entrepreneur bought 10pc of FTSE 100-listed J Sainsbury and sizeable holdings in other publicly-listed companies, such as Mitchells & Butler...
Goldman Sachs is not the Goldman Sachs Betaville first encountered when I was a cub mergers & acquistions reporter in the mid noughties.
Back then, the firm was proud to be the the top investment bank Wall Street (and to some extent the City of London) advising on the biggest multi-billion mergers and punting around the market with its billions of dollars of capital with an unashamed arrogance...
It took a whole day but Feedback plc eventually confirmed little old Betaville's RARE ALERT from earlier in the week. Below is the link:
[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].