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.
Monday, 15 July 2019, 8:49 am
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, appreared to definitively rule out any potential re-nationalisation of BT Group in yesterday's The Sunday Times following reports from Yahoo Finance a couple of weeks ago that Labour was looking at the possibility of taking the telecoms giant back into public ownership.
Below is the link to Oliver Shah and John Collingridge's fascinating piece in yesterday's business sections:..
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Betaville IntelligenceFriday, 12 July 2019, 3:14 pm
Oh look - Morses Club has effectively confirmed this week's tale about Woodford offloading his shareholding in the lender. I have pasted a link below:
https://www.investegate.co.uk/morses-club-plc--mcl-/rns/holding-s--in-company/201907111559172885F/..
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Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersFriday, 12 July 2019, 8:10 am
Friday, 12 July 2019, 6:56 am
No wonder credit default swaps on Thomas Cook's bonds (effectively the cost of bond insurance) were blowing out earlier this week.
Overnight, the details of some funky debt-for-equity swap deal emerged via the Kleimmanator of Sky News (to be fair, it was a good scoop) with Fosun, the Chinese conglomerate that is already Thomas Cook's largest shareholders. Below is the link:..
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Thursday, 11 July 2019, 8:38 am
Two Shields stuck out an interesting annoucement regarding its investment in WeShop just a few days after Betaville stumbled across the penny share. Below is the link:
https://www.investegate.co.uk/two-shields-inv--plc--tsi-/rns/update-on-weshop-limited/201907090816489161E/..
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Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersThursday, 11 July 2019, 8:28 am
Betaville IntelligenceWednesday, 10 July 2019, 4:47 pm
Another day, another Woodford exit from the stock market.
People claiming to be familiar with the matter have told Betaville Neil Woodford is close to dumping his 10pc stake in Morses Club, another one of the fund manager's lender investments, at around 130p a share.
Woodford Investment Management also owns big shareholdings in Provident Financial and Non-Standard Finance, which earlier this year were involved in a hostile takeover...
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Betaville IntelligenceTuesday, 9 July 2019, 4:43 pm
It has been brought to my attention that the Spanish financial website Intereconomia is reporting that Proctor & Gamble has hired Goldman Sachs to launch a takeover bid for Ontex, the Belgian diaper maker, and linking this bid story to Betaville.
This is a complete misrepresentation of what I wrote several weeks ago in an UNCOOKED ALERT...
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Tuesday, 9 July 2019, 2:14 pm
Thomas Cook's debt is coming back into focus as a few punters have noticed credit default swaps for some of the company's bonds are blowing out a tad.
According to Bloomberg data, the CDS - the cost of insurance for a bond - for one Thomas Cook note has leapt by 12000 basis points or around 120pc while the security flirts with an all time low of 34 cents (its denominated in EUROS)...
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Betaville IntelligenceMonday, 8 July 2019, 11:38 pm
Dom Walsh of The Times has also picked up on Marston's potential sale of Pitcher & Piano. Below is a link to his piece:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pitcher-piano-sale-plan-hits-right-note-for-marstons-8wt7f7s3w..
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Sunday, 7 July 2019, 11:00 pm
Oliver Shah's business comment piece in this weekend's The Sunday Times contains an interesting snippet for ITV watchers: an activist investor is rumoured to be studying the possibility of buying a stake in the broadcaster.
The piece goes on to speculate about how the company could look at splitting itself in two or a combination with a rival, such as Germany's ProSieben. Below is a link:..
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Thursday, 4 July 2019, 3:51 pm
The private equity owner of Estera has hired bankers to find a buyer for the trust administration business and several bidders are circling.
City sources said Bridgepoint has appointed advisers from Deutsche Bank and ING to run an auction process for Estera, which specialises in providing corporate, trust and fund services...
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Thursday, 4 July 2019, 9:07 am
Today's serious newspapers - the venerable Financial Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Times - pin Flutter's 20pc share price gain during yesterday's session to various bid rumour theories.
US stakebuilding, private equity or a takeover offer from various competitors were tipped as reasons for the share price surge in the company formerly known as Paddy Power Betfair...
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Wednesday, 3 July 2019, 9:14 pm
Have you ever come across penny share Two Shield Investments?
I have to admit I hadn't until a loyal reader pointed out it might be worth taking a closer look at the company.
The shares were up almost 20pc today - although it's not clear why.
Anyway, there do seem to be an interesting bunch of characters coming onto the shareholder register, such as Matthew Hammond, the CFO of Mail.RU, a Russian internet company...
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Tuesday, 2 July 2019, 4:55 pm
Hat tip to Ben Gartside at Yahoo Finance, who today revealed how the office of Jeremy Corbyn is weighing a £20 billion nationalisation of telecom giant BT Group. Below is the link to the piece:
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/labour-looks-at-nationalising-bt-following-proposal-from-corbyn-ally-071741194.html..
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Monday, 1 July 2019, 10:37 am
Apologies for the delayed post Betavillers; I was taking in the sunshine south of the Medway yesterday...
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Saturday, 29 June 2019, 9:16 am
Tucked away in the back of the business section of my old employer - The Daily Telegraph - are some rather interesting comments from Gervais Williams, the respected fund manager, about the prospect of a pick up in dealmaking.
Williams, who runs the Diverse Income invesmtent trust - told Richard Evans, a rather nice former ex-colleague who writes the Questor column- that London-listed companies are at "unusually attractive valuations"...
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Betaville IntelligenceThursday, 27 June 2019, 10:11 pm
Readers might recall Betaville's RARE ALERT on pub company Marston's last week. Below is the link:
https://www.betaville.co.uk/betaville-intelligence/rare-alert-marstons-said-to/..
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Betaville IntelligenceWednesday, 26 June 2019, 8:45 am
Ontex, the Belgian diaper maker, is rumoured to be back "in play".
People claiming to be familiar with the matter said the company is at the centre of speculation about a potential takeover.
However, it's not clear which company is interested in buying Ontex, said these people claiming to be familiar with the matter.
Last year, Ontex received a takeover approach from French private equity firm PAI Partners...
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Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersTuesday, 25 June 2019, 2:05 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].