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 Sunday review on a Monday...

Tuesday, 11 November 2014, 1:11 am

Tucked away in the middle of Oliver Shah's story on J Sainsbury in The Sunday Times this weekend was quite an interesting nugget of information that appears to have been overlooked by the market...

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Blue is the colour for a red rainmaker

Wednesday, 5 November 2014, 12:52 am

Looking over last week's coverage of Christian Purslow's appointment as the new commercial boss of Chelsea FC it struck me that little has been made of the former City dealmaker's past career in the Square Mile and what that might mean for the Premier League club...

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Another cracker from Parky

Monday, 3 November 2014, 10:27 am

I know I give Parky's trade secrets column in The Times a lot of airtime on Betaville but I just can't help doing it again this morning as his latest missive is absolutely hilarious, spot on and incredibly well written...

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Hunting for Foxtons - part 2

Thursday, 30 October 2014, 2:42 am

Hat tip Harriet Dennys, the City diarist over at The Daily Telegraph, for tracking down Jon Hunt's spokesman and getting him/her to provide some sort of comment on the recent speculation the founder of Foxtons may be interested in buying the estate agency back of the public markets...

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Hunting for Foxtons

Monday, 27 October 2014, 5:45 pm

If you are interested in the fate of Foxtons, the London estate agent everybody loves to hate, then Martin Waller's commentary column in The Times today is definitely worth a read.

In today's business comment, the veteran writer notes speculation that Jon Hunt - the founder of the estate agency who sold the business at the top of the London property market in 2007 to private equity investor BC Partners - may be interested in buying the company back...

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The missing skyscraper story rumbles on...

Monday, 20 October 2014, 12:03 pm

Ping - an email arrives from a new reader.

It contains a picture of chap called Mr Seamas Daly, an Irish businessman who founded a printing company called Photo Images Ltd. He is picketing outside a law firm based in Dublin, Ireland.

..

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Paulson on Abbvie decision to ditch Shire deal

Thursday, 16 October 2014, 2:48 am

John Paulson's fund is clearly not happy about Abbvie's decision to examine backing out of the Shire deal. Here is what Paulson, who is a big shareholder in both Abbvie and Shire, has just told Bloomberg:..

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Ferrovial consortium said to be closing in on £1 billion airports deal

Wednesday, 15 October 2014, 2:55 am

Here is an interesting snippet on the sale of three airports by Heathrow Airport Holdings.

I have been told that the consortium comprising Spain's Ferrovial, Australia's Macquarie and Singapore fund GIC are close to finalising the £1 billion acquisition of Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton airports.

I know this story has been comprehensively covered in recent weeks but my sources tell me the deal might be announced at the end of this week. ..

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Village gossip - has Bootle called off £100m sale of Capital Economics?

Thursday, 9 October 2014, 6:53 am

What has happened to strategic review of Capital Economics, the economics consultancy founded by well-known economist and Daily Telegraph commentator Roger Bootle?

Readers might recall that in June 2013 I broke the story while working at Financial News that Capital Economics had hired advisers from Quayle Munro to work on a strategic review (banker parlance for a sale)...

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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].