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.
Apologies for tardy update Betavillers but I didn't notice that Believe had finally confirmed little old Betaville's UNCOOKED Alert from late last year.
In case you don't recall, little old Betaville published an UNCOOKED Alert about the takeover rumours surrounding the France-listed music services company Believe in early December 2023. Below is a link to that story:..
After months of wrangling among various parties the Saras takeover deal is set to happen.
The Moratti family is selling its 35pc shareholding to Vitol for EURO 1.75 a share, which will trigger a mandatory offer from the Switzerland-based Dutch commodity trading house for the rest of the Italian oil refiner at the same price.
So that's not quite the EURO 2.2 a share reported by the Italian newspapers last week!..
Consolidation among the medium-sized oil producers continues unabated.
Diamondback Energy is set to buy privately-owned Endeavour Energy for up to $30 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper added a deal could be announced as early today. Below is a link to the WSJ report:..
So, the Moratti have finally confirmed what loyal readers of this website will have known for quite some time - that talks about a potential deal involving Italian oil refiner Saras are taking place.
Today's statement came after a report in Italian newspaper MF revealed that commodity trader Vitol had offered to buy the Moratti's stake in Saras at EURO 2.2 share.
Below is a the full statement from Saras:..
Little old Betaville didn't get much credit in today's British newspapers for smoking out the DS Smith takeover bid tale yesterday morning.
I guess this website will have to smoke out an even bigger takeover bid of a London-listed company to get noticed by chums and rivals on the British national newspapers...
Another day, another follow up to one of little old Betaville's alerts from arch rivals at Bloomberg.
This time hacks at Bloomie have picked up on little old Betaville's series of UNCOOKED Alerts about Saras, the Italian oil refinery group controlled by businessman Massimo Moratti, the former owner of Inter Milan football club...
Sometimes it takes a few hours and sometimes it takes a few weeks for little old Betaville's alerts to be confirmed.
With Redrow, though, it took two and a half years.
Loyal readers might recall that back in the summer 2021 little old Betaville published a RARE Alert about the takeover rumours surrounding FTSE 250-listed housebuilder Redrow, whose founder Steve Morgan is the largest shareholder...
Consolidation in the British housebuilding sector has been talked about for a while but nobody believed it would actually happen.
But now it actually has with Barratt Developments announcing a £2.5 billion all-share takeover of smaller rival Redrow.
Barratt Developments is offering 1.44 new Barratt shares for every Redrow share which currently values the latter at just over £2.5 billion or around about a 27pc premium to Redrow's share price at yesterday's close...
It seems little old Betaville owes rival business hack Josh O'Neill an apology.
I thought I was the first to discover late last year that British pet food retailer Jollyes had appointed advisers from Houlihan Lokey to find a buyer for the business.
However, it turns out O'Neill - who works for Debtwire and Mergermarket, little old Betaville's former employers back in the mid Noughties - revealed the scoopette first...
I see rivals at Reuters yesteday decided to follow up little old Betaville's UNCOOKED Alert about the takeover rumours surrounding German biopharmaceutical company MorphSys AG with the line about interest from Swizerland-based pharmaceutical giant Novartis.
Below is the link to the "exclusive" Reuters story:..
Hacks at Bloomberg have dug out another decent scoop about Hong Kong-listed skin care group L'Occitane.
According to Bloomberg, the private equity giant has been considering preliminary due diligence as it evaluates a potential offer while also considering the possibility of teaming up with L'Occitane’s billionaire chairman Reinold Geiger on a buyout...
It would appear pharmaceuticals and biotechnology is still a fertile industry for dealmaking.
Novo Holdings, the largest shareholder in Danish drugs giant Novo Nordisk, just announced the $16.5 billion takeover of US-listed Catalent, provider of delivery technologies, development, drug manufacturing, biologics, gene therapies and consumer health products...
There is a frisson of excitement around Renault's shares this morning after an Italian newspaper suggested it may be in talks about a deal with Stellantis, whose car brands include Fiat, Peugeot and Citroen.
Italian rag Il Messaggero claims France is considering a merger between the two to strengthen its grip on the sector and counter Chinese and German competition. Below is a link to the piece if you read Italian:..
Hat tip to Isabella Fish of The Times for effectively smoking out Julian Dunkerton's plans to take Superdry private.
Superdry was yesterday forced to confirm Dunkerton's move after Isabella's story about stakebuilding from First Seagull AS, a Norwegian hedge fund. Below is a link to Superdry's confirmation:..
Loyal readers might recall little old Betaville published an UNCOOKED Alert a few weeks ago about how Covestro's sale talks with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Corporation weren't going that well.
That resulted in little old Betaville getting it in the neck from a variety of quarters and some of it was in rather foul language...
Twitter can be a pretty horrendous place these days.
But you can still find the odd nugget of something interesting or useful among the whingeing, rowing and sometimes, quite frankly, harrowing images.
It takes, though, a certain type of person to know how to find and present that interesting or useful piece of information on Twitter and I'm not just talking about little old Betaville...
Punchy stuff from Mark "The Kleinmanator" Kleinman of Sky News, who appears to be having a go at the City of London's disclosure rules and Takeover Code in today's City AM column...
Rivals at Debtwire and Mergermarket have picked up on little old Betaville's scoopette about the potential £100 million sale of British pet food retailer Jollyes.
According Debtwire's Josh O'Neil, the private equity owners of supermarket giant Asda, TDR Capital, have been in exclusive talks with Jollyes owner Kester Capital about a takeover of the business...
[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].