A cheeky website about deals, dealmakers and anything else I find interesting. Edited by Ben Harrington. If you have a tip or want to discuss a story please feel free to email Betaville at ben@betaville.co.uk.
Sad news: Iain Dey, business editor of The Sunday Times, is leaving business journalism for the world of financial PR.
His departure from the trade follows a long line of Betaville's former Telegraph colleagues - such as Damian Reece, James Quinn and Jonathan Sibun - joining the somewhat better paid (and, I suspect, better hours) world of corporate communications...
Betaville is another grump. After getting wind late in the day about an impending £1 billion takeover of bus and rail company First Group the company decided to announce an approach from American private equity house Apollo. Below is a link to First Group's announcement:..
Interesting story from rivals over Bloomberg about Global Infrastructure Partners looking to sell its stake in Gatwick Airport for I suspect quite a lot of money (think billions and billions). Below is a link:
Still following the travails at WPP?
If so, then Alistair Osborne's column in The Times from Saturday is well worth a read. I have pasted the link below:
Did anybody else notice that Jos Sclater, GKN's chief financial officer, sold almost £60,000 worth of shares yesterday?
Below is a link to the RNS on the share sale, which shows he sold 13,899 shares at £4.30:
https://www.investegate.co.uk/gkn-plc--gkn-/prn/director-pdmr-shareholding/20180406131642P3F44/..
I see former colleague Alistair Osborne, now business commentator surpremo at The Times, has picked up on Liberum's note about the possbility of WPP spinning off its Kantar market research division...
Advertising giant WPP is in the headlines today and not necessarily for the right reasons:
https://www.investegate.co.uk/wpp-plc--wpp-/rns/independent-investigation/201804040700027165J/
In fact, it was the venerable Wall Street Journal that broke the news last night about the independent investigation into Sir Martin...
Anil Agarwal is now allowed to bid for Anglo American.
Now, to be clear Betaville has no idea whether the wily mining tycoon, who chairs Vedanta Resources, is actually planning to bid for Anglo American...
Hat tip to Betaville's friends over at The Insurance Insider who just about managed to publish their scoop about the Hanover Insurance Group preparing to sell Lloyd's of London insurer Chaucer for up to $1 billion...
Betaville is in a grump. Why? Well, this website prides itself on breaking the top M&A scoops but unfortunately I completely missed the exclusive about Takeda weighing a £35 billion takeover bid for FTSE 100-listed Shire...
Anyone reading the maintream financial press could be forgiven for thinking that it's the end of the road for Greenhill, an M&A boutique that blazed a trail back in the 90s and early noughties by advising on some of the biggest takeover deals in the US and the UK.
In fact, below is a link to recent Bloomberg piece on the firm's recent demise to 52nd on the advisory league tables:..
Take a bow Dan Dunkley (who as far as I'm aware is down in New Zealand somewhere).
Dan, who Betaville had the pleasure of working with at several publications, last year revealed in The Sunday Times that GlaxoSmithKline was preparing to buy out its joint venture partner, Novartis, to get control of their consumer healthcare division. Below is a link to Dan's piece:..
Audioboom, the podcast platform backed by property developer Nick Candy, said to be close to completing the £135 million fundraising it needs to fund its merger with US rival Triton Digital...
Ping! An email arrives from a friendly market observer who has picked on the fact that Simon Rowlands, a senior advisor to private equity firm Cinven, has been buying shares in takeover target Spire Healthcare. I have pasted the link to today's RNS announcement below, which shows Rowlands paid around 218p a share for 114,000 shares:..
I see the Colombia Threadneedle has finally decided to make a decision to back GKN (I have pasted the link below to the excellent article in today's The Times).
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/city-grandee-boosts-gkn-in-bid-battle-hqvz6db2f..
[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].