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.
So, coming up with a silly name to differentiate your consortium from the other Chinese bidders clearly does work. This morning it was announced the mega consortium, which called itself (in secret) the "Saxon Infrastructure Distribution Company", has won the £13 billion National Grid gas distribution auction...
The Rhubarb deal I wrote a few weeks ago has been announced (see below) - although reportedly at a slightly lower valuation than I expected (Dom Walsh at The Times today reported at around £75 million).
http://www.ecipartners.com/news-and-insights/news/2016/rhubarb-exit..
Bloomberg last night "broke" the story about French drugs company Sanofi considering a counter offer for Swiss biopharmaceutical group Actelion. Here is the link:
Dear readers,
Please click on the link below if you interested in today's banter on Tip TV with Jenny Hammond and Zak Mir.
I see the venerable Financial Times has finally got round to confirming my tale from few weeks ago about US-based retailer Coach bringing on board bankers from Evercore to work on a $20 billion Burberry merger.
https://www.ft.com/content/f406c50c-ba18-11e6-8b45-b8b81dd5d080..
Apologies if this a bit late in the day but I think its worthwhile flagging up a rather good scoop written by one of my old colleagues from my time at The Daily Telegraph.
Katherine Griffiths, now Banking Editor at The Times, landed the splash in this morning with her exclusive tale about how the regulators are looking to find a buyer for Manchester Building Society, reminding the world of the British building society crises in 2008/9...
It would appear some people in the echo chamber on the other side of the pond don't "get" Betaville. This is particularly evident with aspects of my recent Twitter stories, which are being mis-represented on Twitter (I realise there are many ironies here). Either that or there are some scallywags trying to deliberately mis-quote Betaville in markets for their own ends...
Little old Betaville's has had a lot of enquiries from readers about where the Twitter auction has got to since I wrote about it a month ago in a RARE ALERT. And this week's news that Twitter will stream Disney's Stars Wars content has really got readers scratching their heads about the sale process. Here is a link to the announcement:..
It's lucky I re-started the "flag pole alert" series a few weeks ago (click on the link if you don't recall - https://www.www.betaville.co.uk/news/flag-pole-alert-the-series-returns/) as Japan Tobacco has just carried out some organisational changes and that has got a few of Betaville's Imperial Tobacco watchers a bit hot under the collar...
Brokers at Bank of America Merill Lynch were yesterday pushing the line that a Severn Trent takeover by infrastructure funds is back on the cards (see below the original note).
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XIO Group, a private equity firm backed by funds from mainland China, has held tentative discussions with BC Partners about buying Mergermarket Group, the online deals news and data service read by thousands of dealmakers around the world...
After last week's Actelion shenanigans, here is a link to this morning's session with Jenny and Zak with, among other things, a little update on the situation. If your interested click on the link below:
Actelion has just confirmed it has received a £17 billion takeover approach from Johnson & Johnson. Meanwhile, Dominic O'Connell, former The Sunday Times business editor and now a presenter on Radio 4, has just Tweeted this:..
Actelion is currently up just over 15pc and various hacks are claiming the "scoop" despite the fact the story hasn't even made into hard newsprint yet in one of the "newspapers of record" (Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph etc) or been confirmed by the Swiss company itself...
Robert Montague hasn't featured in British business sections for quite some time. Perhaps, though, that's a good thing for him because the last time the entrepreneur hit the headlines the company he built into a FTSE 100 business - Tiphook, a container and truck leasing business - was imploding and Montague was declared bankrupt with personal debts of £30 million...
Today's Autumn statement from Philip Hammond confirms my Tory banker chums were bang on the money about the Chancellor of the Exchequer's move to keep the current stamp duty regime in place...
Remember J.C. Flowers & Co?..
Below is what the charming Crispin Odey wrote in his latest report to investors.
It's rather short (typically his missives are at least a 1000 words longer) and somewhat abstract. I guess that's what happens when you have a terrible year (last time I checked poor old Crispin was down around 43pc year to date)...
It wasn't just Zak interviewing me today on Tip TV...
Click on the link below to watch today's Tip TV session:
This isn't earth shattering news but probably interesting for deal watchers in Britain's retail sector.
This week I learned that UK-based private equity firm Bridgepoint has hired investment bankers from Baird to work on a secret project for Hobbycraft, one of Britain's largest arts and craft retailers. Banking sources claimed to me that Baird had been appointed to carry out a strategic review (banker parlance for sale) of Hobbycraft...
[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].