The bizarre goings on at Solutions 30, the controversial France-listed Luxembourg-based outsourcer, continue, with the French regulator and Financial Times jumping onto the stock suspension story. Below is a link to Jamie Powell's (of FT Alphaville) excellent summary of the situation since Betaville last published Part 4 a week ago:..
Followers of little old Betaville's work might have noticed last weekend's front page business story in the Mail on Sunday's business section about The Analyst's bearish view on Deliveroo. Below is the link in case you missed it:
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-9482635/The-Analyst-warns-Deliveroo-dive-40.html..
Dealmaking seems to have gone into overdrive, with Microsoft making a $50 billion takeover approach for Pinterest, online-pinboard platform.
Well, that's according to rivals at the Financial Times. Below is a link to their execellent scoop:
https://www.ft.com/content/f88b8474-e791-4efb-a9f6-54c8222680fe..
The FT's brilliant deals team presents more evidence that dealmaking is continuing at a brisk pace despite the pandemic in a lengthy piece quoting top bankers and lawyers...
Another week, another scoop confirmed for Neil "Neily" Craven, Deputy City at the Mail on Sunday.
On Sunday the intrepid retail hack revealed in the Mail on Sunday's business section that New Look was heading for a major restructuring by appointing advisers from Deloitte. Below is the link:..
Natixis has just booted out its chief executive.
Could this have anything to with the fact that the company's largest shareholder, BPCE, was/is plotting a takeover of the ailing investment bank?
One presumes yes.
Below is an important two paragraphs from tonight's Financial Times. ..
Does anybody else think yesterday's business splash in the The Sunday Telegraph about the Public Investment Fund accumulating a sizeable shareholding in BT Group is connected to the FT's scoop last month about Macquarie holding talks with the FTSE 100-listed telecoms giant about buying a stake in Openreach?..
The Pink 'Un has just published a rather good tale about BT Group starting talks about a sale of Openreach as part of a deal that would value the business at up to £22 billion...
Hat tip to John Lee, who writes an investing column for the venerable Financial Times.
Last summer Mr Lee, who wrote How to Make a Million - Slowly, suggested the politically incorrect Daejan Holdings should be taken private for around £80.00 a share in a piece in the Pink 'Un. Below is a link to the piece:
https://www.ft.com/content/b888c308-814a-11e9-a7f0-77d3101896ec..
Splashed across the front page of the venerable Financial Times is a "scoop" generated by an interview with Mark Carney, the guvnor of the Bank of England, by Lionel Barber, the outgoing editor of the paper.
It's a brilliant interview to land but just a shame that Mr Carney trots out so many statements of the obvious, such as "it's generally true that there's much less ammunition for all the major central banks [to fight recessions] than they previously had"...
Perhaps it isn't all bad news for Crispin Odey: his chum, British prime minister Boris Johnson, won a huge majority for the Tories on Friday.
That comes after Odey called on British business leaders to back Boris in an interview with yours truly for the Mail on Sunday's business section over the summer. Below is a link:..
So, it would appear Autocar was heading in the right direction with its scoop about Lawrence Stroll eyeing a strategic stake in London-listed Aston Martin.
Below are links to a statement from the company and the Financial Times scoop that triggered the announcement...
Poor Crispin Odey - his flagship Odey European Fund is back at the top of HSBC's loserboard.
According the bank's hedge weekly review, charming Crispin is down 22pc as of the middle of November, leaving him at risk of finishing the year as the worst performing European hedgie for the second time in four years...
So, the Financial Times deals team nailed it.
Below is a link to the confirmation, which shows this mega merger is being structured with the LSE buying Refinitiv for $27 billion.
https://www.lseg.com/resources/media-centre/press-releases/statement-regarding-press-speculation..
Wow!
The M&A chaps at the venerable Financial Times are on fire at the moment with another humdinger of a scoop about the LSE merging with Refinitiv as part of a $40 billion combination.
Below is the link:
https://www.ft.com/content/ddf40314-afc6-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2..
Betaville applauds the Evening Standard's excellent City Spy column yesterday sticking up for a young Finanical Times hack that just a couple of days ago was viciously attacked on Twitter by UBS for "agenda journalism"...
So, the mystery surrounding the shareholding shuffle at Oxford Nanopore Technologies might not actually be a mystery after all!
Back in March it emerged, according to the venerable Financial Times, that after Oxford Nanopore told Woodford of its floatation plans the fund manager was able to sell his 2.15 million shares back to the company, which were cancelled and then reissued as new securities...
Two weeks ago financial and political public relations firm Teneo hit the headlines after the boss of its London office issued a warning to employees about "pooing in the shower", leaving their messy underwear for the cleaner to pick up and throwing up on the company carpets. Below is a link to the peice broken on Guido Fawkes and the follow up in the The Times: ..
Betaville has been inundated with phone calls since the venerable Financial Times ran its interview with the Sage of Omaha, in which the octogenarian billionaire investor suggested he is looking at doing a big UK deal. Below is a link to the interview:
https://www.ft.com/content/32676c5c-667e-11e9-9adc-98bf1d35a056
"What's he going to buy,?" asked one veteran investor...
Two separate stories about SoftBank and its leader, Masayoshi Son, broke this morning but Betaville found the juxtaposition of the pieces rather intriguing.
The first tale was about SoftBank spending almost $1 billion on Wirecard convertible bonds that could also give the Japanese conglomerate a 5.6pc stake in the German digital payments company. Below is a link to piece in the FT on the topic:..
It would appear last Friday's post on Wirecard as part of a 6 part series of stories dating back from 2016 has got quite a few readers' knickers in a twist.
Clearly, many followers of the site didn't bother to read past the headline and just presumed Betaville was reporting the Chinese are in talks about taking a 25pc stake in Wirecard.....
Betaville's Wirecard series returns!
Why?
Well, after reading today's front page of the Companies & Markets section of the venerable Financial Times about Ant Financial's $700 million purchase of WorldFirst Betaville was struck by the fact that the timing of the deal is rather amusing given that the Chinese group was once suggested as a potential investor/acquirer of 25pc of Wirecard...
So, the venerable Financial Times have had a good stab at looking into why maverick Mike Ashley is hoovering up every distressed retailer in sight.
Below is a link to the excellent piece in today's hard copy edition.
https://www.ft.com/content/bfcf7bc4-2633-11e9-b329-c7e6ceb5ffdf
However, Betaville isn't 100pc convinced the FT have got to the bottom of the whole story...
Looking over yesterday's coverage of Casino it becomes a little bit clearer to Betaville what last months bid / non bid shenanigans were all about...
If you have been following the fortunes of Wirecard over the last couple of years then this piece (see the link below) by the venerable Financial Timesis worth a read.
Wirecard, a digital payment processing company, was recently promoted to the Germany's blue chip index Dax after seeing its shares surge over the last couple of years and its market cap grow to EURO 23 billion.
But the chaps at the FT have had a bee in their bonnet about Wirecard since 2016.....
There is an interesting juxtaposition of stories/threats on the front page of the excellent business section of The Times today...
This piece (see the link below) in the venerable Financial Times would appear to be connected to the series of stories Betaville has been running since last year about a bunch of pro European City types looking to back a new centrist, er, pro European political party.
https://www.ft.com/content/e03f1e1e-a938-11e8-94bd-cba20d67390c..
Shares in a company that wants to be the first cryptocurrency business to list in London are set to begin trading tomorrow.
Stock in Argo Blockchain, which hopes to mine for crypto currencies, is likely to begin changing hands on the London Stock Exchange at around 16p tomorrow, said sources claiming to be familiar with the matter...
On Monday Sky News via the Kleinmanator bellowed the government was about to launch a sale of some of its stake in the dreaded Royal Bank of Scotland.
But nothing came, which was a surprise as the Kleinmanator is normally on the money.
So, what happened?
Well, the City Insider column in the yesterday's venerable Financial Times has a decent explanation. Below is a link in case you missed it:..
The venerable Financial Times landed a cracking scoop overnight about Barclays explorer a merger with Standard Chartered. I have pasted the link below:
https://www.ft.com/content/7b3c789a-5e0b-11e8-9334-2218e7146b04
It looks like a well-researched piece: there are three by-lines, including one from Patrick Jenkins, a very senior FT hack who has been covering banks for years...
I see the Sosei Group has responded to Bryce Elder's report in the FT about a potential bid for asthma inhaler maker Vectura. Below is a link to it:
https://www.investegate.co.uk/sosei-group-corp/rns/statement-re-press-comment/201804241223349524L/..
Hat tip to Bryce Elder. The FT market reporter who last year broke the story about Warren Buffett and 3G's $140 billion takeover bid for FTSE 100-listed Unilever smoked out another bid this morning. This time the flying Scotsman fleshed out Stobart's £100 million tilt at regional airline Flybe...
They do say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. So, Betaville is feeling rather flattered after reading today's City insider column in the venerable Financial Times.
One item in the column, written by senior FT hack Patrick Jenkins, is rather similar to tale about Matthew Greenburgh first aired on Betaville a few days ago. Below are the links:..
Betaville noticed the venerable Financial Times is today taking a pop at charming Crispin Odey, which must be rather galling for the old buffer.
In fact, the FT piece about Crispin's flagship fund losing assets was a rather good scoop by Miles Johnson, one of the best young financial hacks on the circuit.
There is a to the piece below in case you missed the tale and have an FT sub:..
Hat tip to my old Telegraph colleague Harry Wilson, now City editor at The Times, who today landed a rather good scoop about Eric Daniels, chief executive of Lloyds during the bailout, suing his old employer for hundreds of thousands of pounds of unpaid bonuses.
Below is a link to Harry's story, which was splashed across the front page of the The Times business section:..
Credit Suisse has failed to get a Norwegian tycoon's claim thrown out of the High Court court and could be heading for a messy trial with plenty of juicy disclosure.
Court moles have got in touch with Betaville to inform this website that on July 11, 2017 the Honourable Justice Teare dismissed Credit Suisse's attempt to "strike out" with summary judgement Brova's multi-million claim over the Hertsmere House fiasco...
Crispin Odey just can't keep out of the headlines at the moment.
If it's not the terrible performance of his flagship Odey European fund then it's his controversial views on his own investments that keep grabbing attenion of City scribblers (or should I say "typers" these days?)...
Remember Betaville's tale about how Deloitte had got itself in a bit of a pickle after one of its top bean counters publicly criticised the Icebreaker tax avoidance scheme that the firm itself was defending in the British commercial courts?
Click on the link below if you don't:..
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...
I see freesheet City Am has followed up on little old Betaville's scoopette about Incisive Media, publisher of Investment Week, and its £120 million French deal. Click on the link below if your interested in the story:
http://www.cityam.com/261799/incisive-sale-uk-publishing-company-sells-magazine-titles..
A mystery French company has bought Incisive Media's Insight group, publisher of trade well-known City titles such as Risk and the Insurance Post.
Private equity sources said the French company is thought to have agreed a deal with Incisive Media's owners that will see it pay around £120 million for Insight Group...
Two days on and the upper echelons of the financial media world are still picking over the carcass of the failed Kraft Heinz / 3G / Warren Buffett / Unilever deal.
Probably the best newspaper piece out there is the "tick tock" by Arash Massoudi and James Fontanella-Kahn in today's Financial Times. Here is the link in case you haven't read it:..
Take a bow Bryce Elder, stock market reporter over at the Financial Times. The intrepid hack has just landed the M&A scoop of the year, decade or, perhaps, century with his tale this morning about Kraft Heinz's £100 billion plus takeover approach for Unilever. If you follow M&A, I'm sure you have seen the statements.
I suspect rival hacks, such as the Kleinmanator of Sky News or team Bloomborg, will have trouble topping that one. Good luck to them...
Perhaps the FT's Axa / Generali merger rumours were just a load of hot air after all?
Yesterday, Reuters reported that Axa's CEO is "not interested in Generali" although if you read the story carefully the chief executive doesn't quite say what the headline claims.
Anyway, I will let readers decide what they think by providing a link to the Reuters piece below:..
It would appear the venerable Financial Times was barking up roughly the right tree when it aired the rumours about Italian insurance company Generali merging with a rival, possibly French company Axa, earlier this month. In case you don't recall here is the link:
https://www.betaville.co.uk/news/ft-airs-axa-and-generali-merger-rumours/..
Here is something to liven up a cold January evening. Tucked away at the back of an FT analysis on dealmaking in the insurance industry is a rather intriguing line about how "rumours circulated through last year that two of the big European insurers - Axa and Generali - would try to get together".
That's the first time I have heard of that rumour for a while but perhaps Oliver Ralph, the insurance industry hack at the Financial Times, is/was more plugged in than me...
Hilarious (or ridiculous, perhaps) - the Financial Times is now reporting little old Betaville's AIG/Ascot scoop but attributing the tale as "first reported" by the Wall Street Journal. Here is the link:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9e87f5ae-696b-11e6-a0b1-d87a9fea034f.html#axzz4IEMfWzpj..
I see the most of the British newspaper market reports ran the easyJet bid tale for a second day in a row.
However, the likes of Bryce Elder of the Financial Times and Martin Waller of The Times put a somewhat cynical spin on the jackanory, alluding to the gossip as a "silly season" story that typically come about during the dog days of August...
Last week there were a flurry stories in the British press about how active and succesful the Serious Fraud Office has been recently...
If your interested in the prospects for dealmaking post the Brexit referendum this (click on the link below) piece from FT hacks is worth a read (if you pay for a subscription or can sidestep the paywall).
Enjoy: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7eeb15a2-3dea-11e6-8716-a4a71e8140b0.html#axzz4CsoYi2Sd..
Old deal stories that haven't made into the public domain yet are clearly becoming super fashionable in the mainstream business press.
Today the venerable Financial Times ran a piece about how a mid-level executive at Apple floated the idea of purchasing Time Warner in a meeting with another mid-level executive. Here is the link to the FT piece:..
Hat tip to Neil Hume over at the Financial Times for landing the final twist in the tale of the sale of Argus Media and congratulations to all the journalists who work at the information service as many will soon become multi-millionaires. Here is the link to Neil's story:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8646d45c-20d1-11e6-aa98-db1e01fabc0c.html#axzz49UVqPBH7..