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.
Stockmarket cassandras at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan were out in force yesterday, warning of impending market crash.
So, several leading British newspapers, such as The Times, took those warnings seriously by splashing their business sections on the strategists' gloomy predictions. Here is a link to today's piece in the The Times: ..
Aveva, the software engineering company, is said to be preparing its defences ahead of a potential approach from a mystery suitor.
Some people claiming to be familiar with the matter suggested French giant Schneider Electric is once again weighing a deal with London-listed Aveva.
However, one person close the situation said: "it's not clear how 'real' this situation is."..
There is a fun piece in The Times today from Martin Waller about leaks on M&A deals. Yes, you read it correctly - leaks!
Waller's intro made me giggle, so here is the link if you missed the tale from the old hack:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tracking-down-the-source-of-m-a-leaks-rjgtpmkrr..
If you have a spare five minutes at lunch then give Alistair Osborne's column in the The Times a read...
I see almost all of the business sections of the quality British newspapers ran with the Amazon-for-Ocado bid rumour today, with some publications even dedicating a whole page lead to the takeover speculation.
No surprises, there, I suppose. Amazon's sensational $13.7 billion move on Whole Foods in the US late last week has got tongues wagging in the Square Mile about how the American online retail giant plans to take on the British grocery market...
Little old Betaville is in a particularly good mood this morning as another Intelligence scoopette has been confirmed.
This morning German broadcast giant Prosiebensat1 announced it has sold online travel Etraveli to CVC Capital Partners, one of Europe's largest private equity firms, for just over EURO 500 million. Here is a link to the Financial Times piece on the news:..
Mark Dixon, the Monaco-based billionaire, last night sold over 27 million IWG (formerly Regus) shares at 345p a share, making himself almost £100 million.
I guess that puts paid to the idea that Dixon, the founder of IWG and largest shareholder, is currently in talks with various bidders, which is what was reported last week by little old Betaville's rivals...
John McIntyre is once again set to return to the dealmaking coalface.
The City veteran and wily rainmaker spent the last thirty years on the UK dealmaking scene as head of UK M&A at Lehman Brothers, Dresdner Kleinwort (when it actually did large deals) and Royal Bank of Scotland before it gave up on takeover advisory work.
Some of his deals include advising Railtrack on its defence against its controversial takeover of Network Rail...
I see the US financial news aggregator services, such as Benzinga, are trying to re-publish little old Betaville's paywall protected Intelligence articles by second guessing what the content is saying from part of the headline that is available to the public.
Well, that's a dangerous game to play and does a great disservice to their readers...
The dynamic Danas over at the venerable Wall Street journal dug out a cracking scoop late yesterday about Sweden's Hexagon AB weighing a $20 billion sale of the business. Here is the link in case you missed it:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/hexagon-holds-early-stage-talks-with-rivals-on-possible-sale-1497383843..
Oh look - Sirius Petroleum has finally confirmed my scoopettes about its financing discussions with FTSE 100 oil giant BP. Here is the link:
So, this morning's election result shows the polls got it spot on after all! Hat tip to the The Times for running the front page piece last week about You Gov poll data showing the election tightening.
From now on, though, I think little old Betaville is going to stick to reporting around what he knows best - stock markets, M&A and private equity...
It was only a month ago that little old Betaville had the pleasure of welcoming the UK’s most famous debt collector back into corporate life.
You might remember I wrote about how Derek Sach, the controversial former head of Royal Bank of Scotland’s discredited and disbanded “business support” unit - the GRG - had resurfaced as an advisor to the Europe's largest private equity group CVC Capital Partners, former owner of Formula One. ..
[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].