Has the new private equity owner of Chelsea Football Club just bought a large stake in Blackline Inc, the US-listed financial software company?
Well, the reason Betaville posits the question is that a few days Clearlake Capital Group disclosed it now owns 9.1pc of Blackline Inc...
Betaville feels it may be time to draw to a close this series poking fun at George Osborne and his newish employers at Robey Warshaw.
As loyal readers know, little old Betaville has been gently ribbing the former Chancellor of the Exchequer and his new partners at Robey Warshaw - the merger and acquisition advisory firm set up by London-based rainmaker Sir Simon Robey - since Osborne joined last year because he had failed to land any deals...
Apparently, George Osborne has landed a role for uber dealmakers Robey Warshaw on the £3 billion Chelsea Football Club deal...
The Guardian have just published an intriguing article about the on-off sale of Chelsea Football Club.
Most of the market seemed to think the sale was off yesterday following the news about the British government sanctioning Roman Abramovich.
But now hacks at The Guardian are reporting that a select group of potential buyers are being considered as potential owners by the UK government (is that Nadine Dorries?)...
So, according to Bloomberg, Crispin Odey's uber-bearishly positioned fund is already up by 20pc this month.
Now, it would be easy to take pop at the old cassandra for shorting the market into a public health crisis but the thing is he has been directionally short for the last four years and, as a result, suffered excruciating losses over the last five years...
So, it would appear Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund isn't involved in Nick Candy's £2.3 billion takeover bid for Capital & Counties after all.
According to some sources familiar with the matter, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United Kingdom has just written to the residents of Gibbs Green and West Kensington to let them know that "I have been informed there is no involvment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund"...
I see Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, has resigned as chairman of Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce giant.
Betaville wonders (rather unsubtly) whether Ma has suddenly resigned because he has aspirations of owning a Premier League football club...?..
So, there are a couple of "new" names of potential buyers of Chelsea Football Club floating around the London market at the moment.
Now, to be clear this information is very much UNCOOKED (see below for definition of UNCOOKED) as Betaville has spent all summer trying to corroberate the story for a WELL-DONE alert or front page splash in the paper but has so far failed to do so...