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.
Revolution Bars Group is said to have rekindled talks with privately-owned Deltic about merger.
Sources claiming to be familiar with the matter said Revolution and nightclub operator Deltic have been holding amicable discussions over the last few weeks about striking a deal to combine...
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...
Any financial hack that has been around for over a decade in the UK market knows things have changed dramatically.
But the recent reporting of Mark Carney's potential extension to his term as the governor of the Bank of England demonstrates how ridiculous the situation has become.
Let's start from the beginning: the Evening Standard's excellent diary column runs a piece about how Mark Carney had been asked to stay on for a year by the Treasury. Below is a link:..
Boom! Coca Cola buys Costa Coffee out of Whitbread for over $5 billion.
Now, did anybody in the financial media see that coming?..
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..
I see my former Daily Telegraph colleague, Katherine Griffiths, has written a rather lengthy article in today's The Times extolling the potential benefits of a combination of Lloyds Banking Group with Prudential M&G.
Below is a link to Katherine's piece:..
Hat tip to The Insurance Insider.
Adam McNestrie, editor of the trade newspaper for the specialist insurance industry, broke a tale last week about the imminent takeover of US-listed insurer Aspen by Leon Black's Apollo for $2.6 billion. Below is the link:..
Let's face it - one of the biggest busiess/sport/politcial (?) stories of the weekend was the The Sunday Times mega scoop about Roman Abramovich hiring advisers from Raine to carry out a "strategic review" (banker parlance for sale) of Chelsea Football Club after receiving multiple bids...
Oh look - Elon Musk / Tesla has/have abandoned the plan to take the $70 billion company private. Below is a link to an FT piece with the news:
Betaville isn't an avid reader of the New Statesman magazine but this website did notice this week the venerable publication has gone big on a story that is eerily similar to one aired on this website over the last eighteen months...
Are you bored waking up every morning to pages and pages of Brexit coverage about essentially the same issues and arguments that have been aired since the referendum?
Are you fed up with the lack of hard corporate news?
Is the recent bout of media navel gazing about the state of (my) industry driving you up the wall?
Well, it is August after all so something has to fill the pages.....
21st Century Fox has appointed a powerful shareholder solicitation firm amid speculation it is preparing to launch a final "knockout" offer for Sky.
According to sources claiming to be familiar with the matter, Rupert Murdoch's media group - which has already struck a deal to sell the majority of its assets to Walt Disney Corporation for $52 billion - has mandated Georgeson to sound out Sky shareholders about whether they are willing to support its £14.00 a share offer for Sky...
Betaville's old boss - Richard Fletcher, now business editor of The Times - does a good job of skewering Rightmove.co.uk this morning and its figures about house prices in August.
Fletch is journalist of the old school, asks tough questions and isn't afraid of handing out huge bollockings, as Betaville found out during our time at The Daily Telegraph. ..
Remember Wirecard?
Let me remind you in case you don't: it's the controversial German payment company that two years ago was the focus of a public attack by short sellers.
And two years ago, Betaville broke a series of stories about how Wirecard had seen interest from the Chinese, possibly China Mobile, about buying a large stake in the business. Below is a link to one of those pieces:..
There is more good news for Crispin Odey in the latest HSBC hedge fund index rankings.
Odey's flaghsip fund is up almost 26pc year to date and currently tops the HSBC leaderboard for the best performing European hedge funds.
That's quite the turnaround for the contrarian hedgie, who Betaville understands has been holidaying in Provence, the South of France over the last few weeks...
Another day, another confirmation for Betaville Intelligence.
This time it's a major oil deal across the pond. Back in mid June Betaville Intelligence was the first to reveal via an UNCOOKED ALERT about how Diamondback Energy was in the frame to buy rival Energen. Below is a link to that piece:..
It's not exactly been a great start for Argo Blockchain, the cryptocurrency mining group, as a listed company on London's main bourse.
Shares in London's first ever listed cryptocurrency-related "business" are down about 43pc since it floated and currently trading around 9p after hitting the market at 16p.
Investors are wondering whether those people/institutions that were issued stock at 8p and lower ahead of the IPO are likely to hold if the stock continues to slump...?..
[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].