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. 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.
Friday, 29 January 2016, 1:53 am
It still never ceases to amaze me how quickly stocks fall in and out of fashion with investors, traders and market participants.
Indeed, the healthcare/ biotech sector has taken another serious pasting today following worse-than-expected figures from Roche, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant. So, AstraZeneca is down 3pc today while Shire has fallen almost 5pc.
However, there is one stock that has quiet literally reversed a rout of its share price: MySQUAR...
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Friday, 29 January 2016, 1:11 am
Here's an interesting Tweet from Open Outcrier:..
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Thursday, 28 January 2016, 10:08 pm
If there is one thing that really irritates me it's being beaten to the punch by rival hacks on a story I had spent several days trying to stand up.
Yes, that does occasionally happen to me.
And yesterday was particularly galling as I was just about publish a piece about how the Novum takeover had run into difficulties when hacks and hackettes at the Financial Times released their version of the jackanory. Here is a link to their piece:..
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Thursday, 28 January 2016, 4:39 am
I see Royal Dutch Shell's £35 billion purchase of BG Group has been approved by over 80pc of the Anglo Dutch company's shareholders.
So I guess the Telegraph's recent scaremongering about the deal collapsing, led by Jupiter fund manager Ian McVeigh, was just, err, scaremongering......
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Wednesday, 27 January 2016, 11:20 am
There is an interesting piece in the The Times this morning about J Sainsbury's submitting a revised offer for Home Retail Group (I would paste the link but it doesn't seem to work).
The piece, written by my old boss Richard Fletcher, sort of echoes some of the things I talked about on Tip TV earlier in the week...
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Tuesday, 26 January 2016, 10:17 pm
I have been wondering what happened to the Ed's Easy Diner sale process since I wrote my last piece about a potential deal "moving closer to completion". Here is a link to that article in case you haven't seen it:
http://betaville123.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/dubenss-firm-oakley-hungry-for-eds-easy.html..
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Tuesday, 26 January 2016, 6:33 pm
Stockmarkets around the world are taking another hammering this week, with the FTSE 100 down 1pc this morning after a major sell off in China.
So, I'm wondering whether the "top of the market" series I started on little old Betaville last summer highlighting several clear "top-of-the-market" indicators was a rather prescient warning for investors?
Or, perhaps this is just a "correction" ahead of another leg up post a few interest rate rises in US?..
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Monday, 25 January 2016, 9:19 pm
It's a Monday, so here is a link to today's Tip TV clip.
http://www.tiptv.co.uk/finance/m-sainsburys-bid-for-home-retail/..
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Monday, 25 January 2016, 3:53 am
There were plenty of interesting stories in the Sunday newspaper business sections this weekend.
One tale, though, that caught my eye was the business splash of The Sunday Times.
Oliver Shah and Peter Evans, biz hacks over at The Sunday Times, discovered that giant US hedge fund Och-Ziff has been secretly building a stake in GlaxoSmithKline, Britain's biggest pharma company, and is now putting pressure on the FTSE 100 company's board...
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Friday, 22 January 2016, 11:37 pm
I'm not in the habit of giving Bloomberg much praise as the journalists that work there are pretty good at praising themselves...
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Friday, 22 January 2016, 9:48 pm
I see Mark Kleinman, who I once had the pleasure of working for at The Sunday Telegraph, of Sky News has unearthed a rather interesting story about China's HNA Group working with Barclays on a multi-million takeover bid of London City Airport, the British dealmakers' favourite airport that has been put up for sale by its private equity owners...
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Thursday, 21 January 2016, 4:23 am
Global stock markets have taken a right walloping over the last few months - in some cases indices are down 20pc from last year's highs - but there are a few stocks that are getting hit particularly hard...
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Wednesday, 20 January 2016, 7:54 pm
Oh look - I see Wisekey has confirmed my tale from yesterday about GEM making a multi-million dollar investment in the digital security company backed by Kevin Spacey.
Here is a link today's announcement regarding the deal, which appears to have been completed in Davos...
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Wednesday, 20 January 2016, 3:07 am
I guess little old Betaville wouldn't be a serious news outlet without at least one Davos-related scoopette on the blogsite...
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Tuesday, 19 January 2016, 9:56 pm
Many market participants this morning have been focussing on FTSE 250-listed online retailer Ocado, which saw its shares leap almost 20pc. I'm not commenting on that tale here but people who know me well know what I think of the jackanory. ..
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Monday, 18 January 2016, 7:08 pm
Here is something to cheer you up on the most depressing day of the year: my first appearance on Tip TV in 2016.
http://www.tiptv.co.uk/finance/m-big-week-for-royal-dutch-shell-and-bg-group/..
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Saturday, 16 January 2016, 1:08 am
Eyebrows were raised in the City after it emerged yesterday that Michael Herzog - a top hedge fund manager who specialises in placing big bets on takeover deals - is working for the Takeover Panel, the City's regulator of mergers & acquisitions...
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Friday, 15 January 2016, 11:04 pm
City diary columns have been on the wane during the current tough times for British newspapers, with some business sections getting rid of the column altogether...
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Thursday, 14 January 2016, 6:12 pm
It would appear my sources were bang on the money about Tesco's trading figures coming in "significantly" better than expected.
Tesco shares are up 6pc following the release of the supermarket group's 3rd quarter trading update:..
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Thursday, 14 January 2016, 6:42 am
James "Quinny" Quinn, the group business editor of The Daily Telegraph, has just published a rather good story about the urbane Crispin Odey upping his stake in Sports Direct to back over 5pc. Here is the link:..
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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].