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.
Sierra Wireless, the Nasdaq-listed wireless equipment designer, is rumoured to have rekindled merger talks with Telit Communications, the Aim-listed internet of things company.
People following the situation claimed the recent bout of talks come after Sierra Wireless, which is based in Canada, last year looked at buying part and all of Telit...
Shares in NMC Health, the gulf-based hospital company, are up around 30pc this morning and some readers might be wondering why.
Well, the company is one of the most shorted stocks in the London market but this morning the FTSE 250-listed group announced unveiled half-year figures and a $200 million share buyback programme...
I see former colleague Mark, "the Kleinmanator", Kleinman of Sky News has just published a rather interesting piece about Interserve, a company I have written about recently on Betaville and in the Mail on Sunday's business section (below are the links).
https://www.www.betaville.co.uk/news/interserve-poised-to-be-put-on-the-block-sources/..
It's about that time of the year when some intrepid hack digs out a top Premier League football club takeover scoop.
Indeed, this time last year friends and colleagues on the The Sunday Times business section unveiled Roman Abramovich had appointed advisers from American boutique firm Raine to find a buyer for all or some of Chelsea Football Club. Below is the link:..
PHS, the washroom servces giant, is being prepared for sale by the vulture funds that own the business.
Sources familiar with the matter said advisers from Deutsche Bank have been appointed to carry out a "strategic review" and it could be worth between £500 million and £600 million.
A sale process could kick off in September, said these sources familiar with the matter...
Cox & Kings, the embattled Indian travel group, is said to have appointed bankers from Lazard to find a buyer for budget hostel chain Meininger Hotels.
People with knowledge of the situation said advisers from Lazard had reached out to several private equity firms on behalf of Cox & Kings to see whether they might be interested in purchasing Meininger Hotels from the travel business, which is listed in India...
It took a few hours but Equals Group finally confirmed yesterday's RARE ALERT about the potential multi-million pound equity fundraising.
Admittedly, Betaville might been out by a few million pounds (around £9 million to be precise) but the general thrust of the piece was on the money (no pun intended).
Anyway, below is a link to the confirmation from Equals Group:..
Equals Group, the London-listed banking and payments company, is said to be preparing to tap up investors for fresh equity capital ahead of another multi-million pound takeover deal.
People claiming to be familiar with the matter said Equals Group is looking to raise around £5 million, possibly via a placing of new stock with investors.
The new stock could be placed at between 105p a share and 120p a share, said people claiming to be familiar with the matter...
Here is something that reminded little old Betaville of the pre financial crisis / credit boom era: Robert Tchenguiz building substantial stakes in British publicly-listed companies.
Such a phenomenon hasn't happened since the colourful businessman and property entrepreneur bought 10pc of FTSE 100-listed J Sainsbury and sizeable holdings in other publicly-listed companies, such as Mitchells & Butler...
Goldman Sachs is not the Goldman Sachs Betaville first encountered when I was a cub mergers & acquistions reporter in the mid noughties.
Back then, the firm was proud to be the the top investment bank Wall Street (and to some extent the City of London) advising on the biggest multi-billion mergers and punting around the market with its billions of dollars of capital with an unashamed arrogance...
It took a whole day but Feedback plc eventually confirmed little old Betaville's RARE ALERT from earlier in the week. Below is the link:
Countrywide PLC, the listed estate agency company, has come under the spotlight amid takeover talk.
People following the situation said a mystery predator is circling Countrywide - whose brands include John D Wood, Hamptons International and Bairstow Eves - and a deal may be "in the offing".
However, these people following the situation didn't disclose the identity of the company interested in buying Countrywide...
So, for punters it would appear on this occasion 2+2 = 4.
Below is a link to the report by Muddy Waters, which is trashing Burford Capital.
http://www.muddywatersresearch.com/research/bur/mw-is-short/
But Burford Capital got the right hook in early, releasing a coruscating statement this morning on the Regulatory News Service:..
Feedback plc, the Aim-listed medical imaging technology, company is said to be close to unveiling an equity fundraising.
People claiming to be familiar with the matter said Feedback is working on a placing of new stock with investors and brokers at Peterhouse are leading the deal.
However, it's not clear how much fresh capital Feedback is looking to raise...
Burford Capital, the litigation funder, has crashed by almost 20pc today to around £11.80 a share.
Now, there have been rumours doing the rounds that Neil Woodford has been looking to offload his shareholding via Peel Hunt but punters are today blaming another reason for the massive decline: Muddy Waters.
Yes, the famous (or infamous?) original short seller, run by Carson Block, today tweeted:..
The mischevious scamp who pens the excellent Prufrock diary column in The Sunday Times gave Ravi Gupta, the top Rothschild banker running the Cobham deal, a bit of a shoeing this weekend.
Liam Kelly unveiled the expensive contents of Mr Gupta's rather large house in Hampstead, North London, and then noted he was responsible for selling off Britain's largest industrial businesses, such as Cobham, to any predator willing to pay a sum...
It sounds like the banks and hedgies that ended up owning the failed Interserve are already becoming fed up with being proprietors of the government contracting giant.
According to reliable City sources, Royal Bank of Scotland et al have asked advisers at Lazard to start drawing up plans for a sale of some or all of the group, which could kick off in earnest as early as this September...
As a competitive deals hack it is rather galling to be scooped but once again I take my hat off the FT team that broke the $27 billion LSE/Refinitiv mega merger deal last Friday evening. It's possible that will be the M&A story of the year...
[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].