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.
Here is a tale for Betaville readers that have been following the long, drawn out auction of Indesit, the Italian home appliances company that sponsors Arsenal Football Club...
Evening Betavillers - here's a little tale for you to ruminate on over the weekend.
I hear one of Japan's biggest financial institutions may be weighing a £2 billion plus takeover bid for rolling stock giant Porterbrook.
My banking sources have heard (unconfirmed) rumours that Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) is keen on buying Porterbrook, which has been put up for sale by its shareholders. SMBC declined to comment...
Hat tip to Bryce Elder, the stock market reporter over at the Financial Times, for landing the best M&A story of the morning and who looks to be on a bit of deals story winning streak (remember last week Bryce broke the story about the Dialog and AMS merger - time for a pay rise, Ed?)...
I see reports are emerging that Dutch financial services giant ING is on the verge of listing its insurance arm in what should be one of the biggest IPO's of the year...
Interesting to see Mike Ashley's Sports Direct deny speculation that the company is planning buy shoe chain Office. Here is a link to the statement from Sports Direct: http://www.investegate.co.uk/sports-direct-intl---spd-/rns/trade-speculation---office/201406300700158347K/..
Ever heard of Aim-listed Shaft Sinkers? Neither had I until a contact pointed out that yesterday the stock leapt 20pc for no good reason...
The mystery surrounding Lazard's role in the Shire/AbbVie deal continues...
The odds on Lazard turning up as an adviser to a bidder for Shire appear to be improving after it emerged the FTSE-100 listed company has appointed Goldman Sachs to its defence advisory team...
It struck me as I was going over the weekend media coverage of AbbVie's £27 billion takeover bid for FTSE 100-listed Shire that something was missing. That something is Lazard...
The Sunday Times and Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv have unearthed an explosive new angle on the missing skyscraper story I have been running on Betaville over the last couple of months...
If you are following the Shire takeover situation, this latest Tip TV clip could be of interest: http://www.tiptv.co.uk/archives/tip-tv-highlight-ben-harrington-20-06-2014/..
Great hit from Olivia Oran and Mike Stone over at Reuters with a story about AbbVie's £26 billion plus takeover approach for London-listed Shire...
It would appear Whirlpool is still in the running to buy Fineldo's majority stake in Indesit, the Italian home appliances company that sponsors Arsenal Football Club. ..
If you have a puerile sense of humour like myself, then you might like Parky's latest column - it's hilarious but also on the money.
Here is the link: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/columnists/article4120168.ece..
Does anybody else find it a bit odd that today's media coverage of the failed merger talks between Orange and Bouygues Telecom pretty much all fail to mention the bigger industry tale that has been rattling around European markets all week - the talk of a EURO 90 billion merger between Deutsche Telekom and Orange...
Good story from James Wilson over at the Financial Times today on the front page of the newspaper's Companies and Markets section. James reports BHP Billiton is looking offload all of the assets that Billiton brought to the mining giant from the historic merger of both companies in 2001...
Little old Betaville really has been making waves and causing trouble this week, with two of my recent jackanories ending up in reputable national newspapers this morning...
It's just hit the tape that US private equity and hedge fund manager Fortress is placing its 27pc stake in German property company Gagfah. Deutsche Bank is doing the placing for Fortress, which bought Gagfah in 2004 for £2 billion...
I see Jonathan Sorrell, the son of WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell, is up to his old tricks again...
[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].