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.
Perhaps I won't need the popcorn after all: this morning Blackstone and Bill Gates's firm Cascade announced it had teamed with Global Infrastructure Partners to mount a joint £3.4 billion offer for Signature Aviation at 411p a share. Below is the link:..
Speculation is mounting that Pernod Ricard, the France-listed drinks giant, is the European company circling Treasury Wine Estates.
People following the situation have heard rumours Pernod Ricard is working with advisers from Morgan Stanley on a potential acquisition of the Australia-listed wine distributor.
A large private equity firm is also said be interested in Treasury Wine Estates, said people following the situation...
Betaville was casting around for stories today and stumbled around a curious line around the three-way battle for Signature Aviation, the London-listed private jet operator.
It would appear, according to publicly available financing documents, that Global Infrastructure Partners, one of the firms interested in buying Signature Aviation, is offering to finance its bid in, er, equity. Yes, you heard that right - equity to the tune of $4.6 billion...
British newspapers devoted plenty of column inches to George Osborne's move to Sir Simon Robey's firm Robey Warshaw. But little has been made of the fact that Sir Simon, the City of London's uber dealmaker, quietly resigned as a director of Ian Osborne's firm last September...
Another week, another increase in Dbay's shareholding in Telit Communications, the Aim-listed 'internet of things' designer.
This morning it was disclosed that Dbay, which in December offered 194.8p a share for Telit Communications, now owns 23pc of the business. Below is the link:..
Punters might want to keep an eye on Tiziana Life Sciences, the London-listed biopharmaceutical company.
That's because Betaville hears the company has been working on a Covid-19 drug treatment that might be able to address the new variants of the virus entering the United Kingdom...
Groupe BPCE is rumoured to be working with heavyweight American advisers on the potential Natixis deal.
People following the situation have heard speculation JP Morgan has been advising privately-owned Groupe BPCE on strategic options, which include buying out the remainder of Natixis that it doesn't own...
JD Sports has just announced it is paying $495 million for US-based trainer retailer DTLR Villa. Below is the link to the announcement.
Hacks at the venerable Wall Street Journal dug out a corker late last night: apparently ExxonMobil and Chevron looked at combining last year to create a $350 billion oil behemoth. Below is a link to the scoop:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-chevron-ceos-discussed-merger-11612126203?mod=hp_lead_pos1..
I see rivals at Bloomberg have finally woken up to the Marston's bid rumour and published a piece about interest from private equity firms such Platinum.
Now, this news won't come as a surprise to readers of this website as Betaville Intelligence first revealed the bid speculation surrounding Marston's in an UNCOOKED Alert and a follow up a few weeks ago. Below are the links:..
Word is Simon "Dingo" Dingemans is leading Carlyle's potential bid for Signature Aviation.
Now, younger readers might not recall who Dingemans is. Back in the boom boom of the noughties Dingemans was one of the top dealmakers at Goldman Sachs, advising on the some the biggest takeover deals, such as the £12bn takeover of Alliance Boots by KKR in 2007 and Vodafone's hostile £115bn acquisition of Mannesmann in 2000...
It would appear this morning's missive has stirred the pot somewhat, eliciting howls from sound corners of the London market.
To be clear, this morning's report wasn't suggesting there WILL BE a Takeover Panel led auction this weekend; just that is talk there is one coming down the track as there are moves afoot by advisers (don't forget, this could all be tactical to get one side to jump first)...
There is speculation circulating the London market that the Takeover Panel and the various advisers working on the G4S bid battle may be preparing for a unusual weekend auction process.
That's because both Canada-based Garda World and America's Allied Universal have extended their respective offers after a very limited of amount of investors have accepted their respective bids...
Mexian billionaire Carlos Slim has increased his stake in Royal KPN from 16pc to 20pc, according to Dutch rag De Telegraaf.
Some readers might recall Slim attempted to buy KPN back in 2013 but ultimately failed.
Anyway, the De Telegraaf claims "the purchase of additional shares seems to fuel hopes that a bid for KPN may be in the pipeline"...
Shares in Pearson, the educational publisher, are up about 10pc this morning after rising as high as 15pc at one point.
Now what is behind this morning's huge gains? Well, nobody quite knows but, according to ShortTracker.co.uk, the company is one of the most heavily shorted stocks in the London market with 8.7pc of its stock on loan to short sellers...
If you were wondering why shares in Telit Communications, the Aim-listed 'internet of things' designer, have been so strong since it called of deal talks with Swiss rival U-blox look no further than Dbay, the activist firm led by renowned investor Colin Kingsnorth.
Dbday, which offered 190p for the business in December, just announced it has bought another 3pc of Telit Communications, taking its shareholding up to 21.20pc. Below is the link:..
Is Koss Corporation next on the list for a "bull attack"?
GameStop, the video game retailer, and then Blackberry, the handheld device maker, have seen huge share price gains in recent days as groups of retail punters gang up on short sellers by coming together on Wallstreetbets/ Reddit to hoover up call options, creating massive short squeezes.
Now the talk is Koss Corporation, a US-listed designer of headphones, is being targeted...
There was a piece on the front page of yesterday's The Sunday Telegraph business section that caught Betaville's attention as it was eerily similar to Friday's UNCOOKED Alert on J Sainsbury...
[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].