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.
To the Court for tomorrow's hearing to sanction Warburg Pincus and Apax's Scheme of Arrangement to take Inmarsat private.
The judge may be confronted by a bunch of angry hedgies who have been arguing the private equity firms should pay more or attach a contigent value right aspect to their deal because of developments in the US sattelite industry may mean Inmarsat is worth significantly more...
The market was a tad surprised by this morning's announcement about Northgate's all-share merger of Redde, which provides replacement vehicle, repair and recovery services to insurance company customers.
Not least because just a couple of days ago around 45 million Redde shares changed hands, which effectively saw Neil Woodford's defunct outfit (now controlled by Blackrock) and his old colleague Mark Barnett of Invesco Perputual cleared out (or partially cleared out) of the stock...
Ingenico, the French payment terminals company, is said to have now rejected a recent takeover approach from Worldline.
People following the situation said Worldline, another French payments company, is rumoured to have submitted a takeover proposal to Ingenico valuing the business at EURO 120 a share but this has been rebuffed by the latter.
Some people had heard Worldline is preparing to raise its offer to EURO 130 a share...
Betaville has a rather fragile ego thanks to years of working at the coalface of British financial journalism.
So, I was pleased to see US insurance giant Arthur J Gallagher & Co announce it is planning to buy the remainder of London-based reinsurance broker Capsicum Re, set up by Graham "Chily" Chiltern, founder of Benfield (which was eventually sold to Aon)...
The Inmarsat takeover saga continues, with the company delaying the Court hearing to sanction the Scheme of Arrangement until next week. Below is the link:
You don't see this very often: hedge funds coming out publicly against their rivals in support of the board during a row about whether the target company should be a soliciting a higher offer or contigent value rights from its private equity acquirers...
Word reaches Betaville that China's beleguered HNA Group is trying once again to offload Swissport, the airport cargo handling group.
According to sources familiar with the situation, bankers from NM Rothschild and boutique firm Benedetto Gartland & Company have been quietly appointed to find a buyer for Swissport...
Here is a story thay may resonate with some Betaville's core readers: Pageant Media, which owns HedgeFund Intelligence, is working with advisers on "strategic options".
Sources close to the situation said Pageant Media, which is controlled by entrepreneur Charles Kerr, is working with advisers from corporate finance firm Livingstone (now part of NM Rothschild), a move that could lead to an eventual sale of the business...
Apologies loyal readers. It seems Betaville might have got slightly the wrong end of the stick when noting the Australian Financial Review's piece about the Glencore / Rio Tinto merger talk.
It would appear the AFR's Street Talk column is in fact suggesting Rio Tinto is looking at taking a run at Glencore and combination is more likely to lead to an £80 billion market capitalisation company. Below is the link to the AFR's piece:..
Inmarsat's board is facing another shareholder backlash after it emerged that investors controlling 17pc of the company have written to the FTSE 250-listed business, arguing it should delay the sale of the business or even appoint an independent financial adviser to review the £2.6 billion takeover offer from Apax and Warburg Pincus amid questions about a "conflict of interest"...
Tongues are wagging down under about the prospect of Ivan Glasenberg taking another run at Rio Tinto.
The Australian Financial Review has led the well-respected Street Talk column with the merger rumour after Glencore boss Ivan Glasenberg and Steve Kamlin, the company's CFO, recently travelled to Australia. Below is a the link to the recent AFR piece:..
The timing of Hurricane Energy's latest RNS announcement - https://www.investegate.co.uk/hurricane-energy-plc--hur-/rns/-warwick-west--204-30b-4-well-update/201911190700068153T/ - regarding its Warwick West well is intriguing.
Why?..
Oh look - I see Capital & Counties late last week confirmed Betaville's part 13 and part 14 RARE Alerts about the imminent sale of Earls Court to Jamie Ritblat's Delancey. Below is a link to the announcement:..
Capital & Counties, the London-listed property company, is on the verge of announcing a sale of its Earls Court site to Delancey for £370 million but has received an eleventh hour £100 million higher offer from a mystery consortium backed by the Hong Kong-based Kwok family...
So, it would appear Ben Gartside of Yahoo Finance was barking up the right tree when he dug out a rather good scoop in July about Labour looking to nationalise BT Group.
Below is the link to his great story:
https://www.www.betaville.co.uk/news/labour-eye-bt-group-nationalisation-according-to-y/..
Capital & Counties, the London-listed property company, is said to be close to striking a deal to sell some or all of the business.
People following the situation said an anouncement about a transaction could be made in the next few days although it isn't clear whether the deal is just for company's troubled Earls Court site in London or the whole company, which includes Covent Garden...
It's been a busy few days at Betaville towers, so I completely missed the fact that Alba Mineral Resources confirmed last week's RARE Alert about a potential placing just a few hours after this website published the piece.
Below is a link to the confirmation from Alba Mineral Resources:..
It's pretty quiet in UK private equity land at the moment. No surprises there given the fact there is a general election coming up in a month in what is likely to be one of the most unpredictable votes of all time despite what the polls say. Remember, the polls got it completely wrong in 2015.
So, several London-based buy-out heads have told Betaville they are sitting on there on hands at the moment, waiting to see what the outcome of the election is...
[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].