A cheeky website about deals, dealmakers and anything else I find interesting. Edited by Ben Harrington. If you have a tip, want to discuss a story or have a subscription enquiry please feel free to email Betaville at [email protected]. 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.
Thursday, 20 November 2014, 9:21 pm
Nick Batsford - aka Moose - very kindly asked me back onto Tip TV to talk about M&A. As usual, it was great fun and also a great honour - I preceded veteran City commentators such as Panmure Gordon's David Buik.
Here is a link to today's clip: http://www.tiptv.co.uk/archives/ma-ben-harrington-betaville-blogspot/ ..
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Wednesday, 19 November 2014, 11:32 pm
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Tuesday, 18 November 2014, 1:33 am
It's game over for investors that were betting on a potential counter bid from US group Microchip Technology for London-listed CSR...
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Wednesday, 12 November 2014, 11:27 pm
Typical. I mentioned it was unusually quiet in the UK corporate dealmaking scene in a post this morning and a couple of hours later my rivals unearth a cracking scoop...
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Wednesday, 12 November 2014, 6:36 pm
It's unusually quiet in the UK corporate dealmaking scene so I thought I would take a look at a story in another sector I have a profound interest in: Premier League football...
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Tuesday, 11 November 2014, 1:11 am
Tucked away in the middle of Oliver Shah's story on J Sainsbury in The Sunday Times this weekend was quite an interesting nugget of information that appears to have been overlooked by the market...
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Thursday, 6 November 2014, 2:28 am
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Wednesday, 5 November 2014, 12:52 am
Looking over last week's coverage of Christian Purslow's appointment as the new commercial boss of Chelsea FC it struck me that little has been made of the former City dealmaker's past career in the Square Mile and what that might mean for the Premier League club...
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Monday, 3 November 2014, 10:27 am
I know I give Parky's trade secrets column in The Times a lot of airtime on Betaville but I just can't help doing it again this morning as his latest missive is absolutely hilarious, spot on and incredibly well written...
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Sunday, 2 November 2014, 10:37 pm
My court mole has been back in touch after having a bit of time to look over Mrs Justice Swift's judgement on whether the row between Sir Paul Judge and Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation should proceed to trial...
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Friday, 31 October 2014, 9:16 pm
Ping - an email arrives from my court mole with some fresh information on the ongoing row between Sir Paul Judge and Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation...
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Thursday, 30 October 2014, 2:42 am
Hat tip Harriet Dennys, the City diarist over at The Daily Telegraph, for tracking down Jon Hunt's spokesman and getting him/her to provide some sort of comment on the recent speculation the founder of Foxtons may be interested in buying the estate agency back of the public markets...
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Tuesday, 28 October 2014, 5:35 pm
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Monday, 27 October 2014, 5:45 pm
If you are interested in the fate of Foxtons, the London estate agent everybody loves to hate, then Martin Waller's commentary column in The Times today is definitely worth a read.
In today's business comment, the veteran writer notes speculation that Jon Hunt - the founder of the estate agency who sold the business at the top of the London property market in 2007 to private equity investor BC Partners - may be interested in buying the company back...
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Sunday, 26 October 2014, 9:18 pm
Congratulations to Roger Bootle and Peter Rigby...
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Saturday, 25 October 2014, 3:22 pm
There is plenty of coverage this morning about the court case involving Dechert and Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation, the mining company that used to be listed on the FTSE 100 index...
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Wednesday, 22 October 2014, 11:30 pm
Media types might interested to hear that Top Right Group, the company formerly known as Emap, is closing in on a decent-sized events and exhibition deal...
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Monday, 20 October 2014, 12:03 pm
Ping - an email arrives from a new reader.
It contains a picture of chap called Mr Seamas Daly, an Irish businessman who founded a printing company called Photo Images Ltd. He is picketing outside a law firm based in Dublin, Ireland.
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Friday, 17 October 2014, 4:00 am
Regular readers shouldn't be surprised to learn that the owners of Heathrow have just sold Aberdeen, Southampton and Glasgow airports to a consortium comprising Spain's Ferrovial and Macquarie for £1 billion...
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Thursday, 16 October 2014, 2:48 am
John Paulson's fund is clearly not happy about Abbvie's decision to examine backing out of the Shire deal. Here is what Paulson, who is a big shareholder in both Abbvie and Shire, has just told Bloomberg:..
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[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].