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.
Friday, 21 December 2018, 12:11 am
It never ceases to amaze little old Betaville how one stumbles across jackanories about bigwigs in the City.
The latest whisper is that CQS, the $17 billion hedge fund run by Tory donor Sir Michael Hintze, is today expected to make a major "corporate announcement".
One can only presume that it's connected to the past reports that Xavier Rolet, former boss of the London Stock Exchange, has been approached about running the mega fund...
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Wednesday, 19 December 2018, 1:19 pm
Typical!
Betaville was just in the process of liasing with one of the institutional data providers for the deals numbers for this quarter to prove my own theory that the volume of announced public transactions had fallen off cliff for this period compared to previous years when: boom - Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline announce a £10billion merger of their respective consumer healthcare businesses. Below is a link to the news:..
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Wednesday, 19 December 2018, 1:04 am
Albert Edwards, the so-called City "Perma-Bear" and strategist at Societe Generale, tends to get in the neck for his predictions of doom over the last decade, especially as equities have been on a non-stop bull run since 2009.
And the cassandra was at it again when I wrote a piece about the state of the stockmarket for The Sunday Times business section late last year. He warned:..
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Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersMonday, 17 December 2018, 7:22 am
Sunday, 16 December 2018, 8:28 pm
Neil Craven, a colleague over at the Mail on Sunday's business section, landed a cracking tale this weekend about ailing department store Debenhams...
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Friday, 14 December 2018, 6:29 pm
Here is an idea. Why doesn't a British uber-dealmaker-City-grandee type step up and volunteer his/her services to negotiate a Brexit deal?
Betaville has had plenty dealmakers whinging about how badly the British government is doing with its talks with the EU over Brexit and that it's having a huge impact on UK M&A.
Indeed, Betaville knows of at least one large deal that's just been torpedoed because of the "Brexit uncertainty"...
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Thursday, 13 December 2018, 7:06 pm
...the next you're the feather duster".
That's the motto of Piers Morgan, former editor of The Daily Mirror. At times, Betaville's career in financial journalism has felt a bit like that. I went from being the star mergers & acquistions reporter on The Daily Telegraph's City desk at the tender age of 27 to now jobbing freelancer and bedroom blogger at the age of 39...
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Wednesday, 12 December 2018, 10:40 pm
Most hacks on national newspapers are bombarded by public relations-driven research on daily basis. Today, for example, I count around 20 of these type of emails in my inbox. And I'm just a jobbing freelancer and editor of a one man band website. Just imagine how many a staff journalist receives on a national newspaper...
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Betaville IntelligenceTuesday, 11 December 2018, 3:46 pm
I'm not sure I have ever seen such a comment - "not aware/unaware of any statement on Amazon chatter" - from a company spokesperson (see below) in reaction to a market tale.
Either the spokesperson got backed into a corner and blurted this out or this is the new way of issuing (non-denial?) denials by company spokespeople...
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Exclusive to Betaville Intelligence subscribersMonday, 10 December 2018, 11:45 pm
Betaville IntelligenceSaturday, 8 December 2018, 2:45 pm
Just 48 hours after Betaville's RARE alert on Chelsea FC/Stella EOC it is revealed by former colleagues at The Daily Telegraph that the proprietor of the club is to be targeted by British intelligence as part of a sustained campaign to disrupt Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. Below is a link to Con Coughlin's piece:..
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Betaville IntelligenceThursday, 6 December 2018, 9:21 pm
Football club M&A tends to operate in parallel universe to standard City dealmaking. Well, at least that's what Betaville has experienced over the last decade of covering mergers and acquistions for the business sections of some of Britain's top newspapers.
So, readers should note the above before continuing to read this tale. And to be clear this snippet is very much RARE (see the definition below) of the RAREST kind...
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Thursday, 6 December 2018, 9:27 am
Another one of Betaville's former employers - Euromoney Institutional Investor - is in the limelight this morning.
Yes, a long, long time ago Betaville started off as a cub reporter/graduate trainee on Air Finance Journal, one of Euromoney's leading publications, on terrible wages (around 12k a year pre-tax).
But I appreciated the start and it clearly led on to bigger things, so thanks Euromoney...
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Wednesday, 5 December 2018, 8:30 pm
Ping! A friendly broker gets in touch to point out that Coast Capital, a New York-based activist hedge fund, has increased its stake in beleguered bus and rail operator FirstGroup to 4.1pc. Below is a link to the RNS disclosure:
https://www.investegate.co.uk/firstgroup-plc--fgp-/prn/holding-s--in-company/20181205131449P16D7/..
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Wednesday, 5 December 2018, 12:22 pm
Brexit shenanigans are certainly clogging up the City's dealmaking arteries in Britain but there is one sector that is still seeing a lot of activity - publishing, trade shows and exhibitions.
There have been quite a few deals in the space since the beginning of the year - i.e. Informa's £9 billion merger with UBM - and Betaville hears there are likely to be a few more...
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Betaville IntelligenceMonday, 3 December 2018, 8:22 pm
Oh look - I see maverick Mike Ashley has just told Kingy over at Sky News that talks about a sale of Newcastle United are now "at a more progressed stage than they have ever been". Below is a link:
https://news.sky.com/story/mike-ashley-eyes-imminent-sale-of-newcastle-utd-11571007..
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Betaville IntelligenceMonday, 3 December 2018, 6:14 pm
There hasn't been much of a market reaction to Dealreporter's latest twist on the Acadia Healthcare buy-out.
The news/intelligence agency, which a long time ago Betaville worked for prior to my days at The Daily Telegraph, claimed over the weekend that KKR is still in talks with Acadia Healthcare despite reports to the contrary...
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Friday, 30 November 2018, 11:45 pm
So, the party season has begun. This week Betaville was lucky enough to attend one of the best business parties of year - and it was packed with some of the City's top grandees.
Everybody seemed in a jovial mood, especially as the booze was flowing. But once the conversation turned to the dreaded Brexit the chat soured...
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Betaville IntelligenceThursday, 29 November 2018, 6:25 pm
Here is a little update for readers interested in last week's tale about the American REITs interested in Barchester Healthcare, the care home giant.
Sources following the situation said it's unlikely the likes of Welltower Inc and Ventas will look to buy Barchester outright as they are primarily interested in the company's property portfolio...
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Wednesday, 28 November 2018, 8:45 am
David Wighton, City Editor at Financial News, landed a great scoop on Monday about Macquarie trying to buy Liberum, one of the City of London's mid tier stockbrokers. Below is a the link:
https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/macquarie-in-talks-to-buy-liberum-20181126..
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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].