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.
A good spot from the Evening Standard's City Spy column.
Hacks who write the column at the London-based free sheet discovered that new company has been formed at Companies House called 'Urban Logistics Bidco'. Below is a link to the company at Companies House:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15394134/filing-history..
Chris Williams of The Daily Telegraph last night delivered a brilliant new line on the Currys takeover bid situation.
Williams revealed that chinese shopping giant JD.com is also considering making an offer for Currys. Below is a link to his scoop:..
Mark "The Kleinmanator" Kleinman of Sky News has just popped up with a cracking Saturday morning scoop.
Elliott Advisors - the activist investor that owns British book chain Waterstones - is plotting a takeover bid for London-listed Currys, the electrical goods retailer, according to Kleiny, a former colleague during my time on the The Daily Telegraph.
Below is a link to the Kleinmanator's scoop in case you want to read the whole thing:..
Bears gave Temenos, the Switzerland-listed banking software company, a good mauling yesterday.
Activist short seller Hindenburg Research, led by Nathan Anderson, unleashed a scathing research note containing a vast list of seriously punchy allegations. For legal reasons those allegations can't be repeated in these pixels but if you want to read them all I have pasted the link below:..
You can always realy on Dominic "Dom" Walsh to dig out a good line when he is writing the The Times stockmarket report.
The veteran business hack, who specialises in covering the consumer and leisure industries, writes in today's column in The Times business section that:..
Matthew Moulding continues to build his shareholding Kelso, the activist firm that has been pushing for a break up of THG, the London-listed online retail group set up by the controversial businessman.
Kelso, led by stockbroker John Goold, this morning declared that Moulding, who now owns City AM, has upped his shareholding to 8.4pc of the investment vehicle. Below is a link to the announcement:..
Another late hat tip from little old Betaville.
David Hatcher and colleagues at React News broke the story about Tritax Big Box's £4 billion merger talks with UK Commercial Property REIT late on Friday night and yesterday morning the details of the deal were announced on the regulatory news service...
Apologies for tardy update Betavillers but I didn't notice that Believe had finally confirmed little old Betaville's UNCOOKED Alert from late last year.
In case you don't recall, little old Betaville published an UNCOOKED Alert about the takeover rumours surrounding the France-listed music services company Believe in early December 2023. Below is a link to that story:..
After months of wrangling among various parties the Saras takeover deal is set to happen.
The Moratti family is selling its 35pc shareholding to Vitol for EURO 1.75 a share, which will trigger a mandatory offer from the Switzerland-based Dutch commodity trading house for the rest of the Italian oil refiner at the same price.
So that's not quite the EURO 2.2 a share reported by the Italian newspapers last week!..
Consolidation among the medium-sized oil producers continues unabated.
Diamondback Energy is set to buy privately-owned Endeavour Energy for up to $30 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper added a deal could be announced as early today. Below is a link to the WSJ report:..
So, the Moratti have finally confirmed what loyal readers of this website will have known for quite some time - that talks about a potential deal involving Italian oil refiner Saras are taking place.
Today's statement came after a report in Italian newspaper MF revealed that commodity trader Vitol had offered to buy the Moratti's stake in Saras at EURO 2.2 share.
Below is a the full statement from Saras:..
Little old Betaville didn't get much credit in today's British newspapers for smoking out the DS Smith takeover bid tale yesterday morning.
I guess this website will have to smoke out an even bigger takeover bid of a London-listed company to get noticed by chums and rivals on the British national newspapers...
Another day, another follow up to one of little old Betaville's alerts from arch rivals at Bloomberg.
This time hacks at Bloomie have picked up on little old Betaville's series of UNCOOKED Alerts about Saras, the Italian oil refinery group controlled by businessman Massimo Moratti, the former owner of Inter Milan football club...
Sometimes it takes a few hours and sometimes it takes a few weeks for little old Betaville's alerts to be confirmed.
With Redrow, though, it took two and a half years.
Loyal readers might recall that back in the summer 2021 little old Betaville published a RARE Alert about the takeover rumours surrounding FTSE 250-listed housebuilder Redrow, whose founder Steve Morgan is the largest shareholder...
Consolidation in the British housebuilding sector has been talked about for a while but nobody believed it would actually happen.
But now it actually has with Barratt Developments announcing a £2.5 billion all-share takeover of smaller rival Redrow.
Barratt Developments is offering 1.44 new Barratt shares for every Redrow share which currently values the latter at just over £2.5 billion or around about a 27pc premium to Redrow's share price at yesterday's close...
It seems little old Betaville owes rival business hack Josh O'Neill an apology.
I thought I was the first to discover late last year that British pet food retailer Jollyes had appointed advisers from Houlihan Lokey to find a buyer for the business.
However, it turns out O'Neill - who works for Debtwire and Mergermarket, little old Betaville's former employers back in the mid Noughties - revealed the scoopette first...
[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].