Betaville has been inundated with phone calls since the venerable Financial Times ran its interview with the Sage of Omaha, in which the octogenarian billionaire investor suggested he is looking at doing a big UK deal. Below is a link to the interview:
https://www.ft.com/content/32676c5c-667e-11e9-9adc-98bf1d35a056
"What's he going to buy,?" asked one veteran investor...
The Swedish billionaire squire is at it again. Stefan Persson was in the last few days hoovering up more stock in Hennes & Maurtiz, the company founded by his father, Erling Persson, back in 1947.
According to Bloomberg, Persson just spent around $153 million on 10.4 million shares in Hennes & Mauritz in the last few days...
Oh look - it would appear Betaville's rivals over at Bloomberg are echoing last Sunday's piece by yours truly in the Mail on Sunday's business section.
Below is the link to yesterday's piece on Bloomberg:..
I have to apologise to hacks at Bloomberg - it would appear Betaville didn't realise the news agency published its Gatwick scoop on Friday night.
Indeed, according to the timestamp on the Bloomie piece the news agency's article came out at 18:56 on October 12 but the Irish Independent's piece quoting Bloomberg and its reporters came out on October 14th, so not quite sure what's happened there.....
At first sight it would appear hacks over at Bloomberg followed my scoopette in this weekend's Mail on Sunday about the looming £10 billion Gatwick Airport sale. Below is a link to the Irish Independent's rip off yesterday's Bloomberg follow up, which is dated October 14th (yesterday):..
Apparently, charming hedgie Crispin Odey, a vocal Brexiteer, is preparing to go into politics!
Well, that's according to a report in trade rag Financial News, which the publication splashed on earlier this week. Hat tip to intrepid FN hack Tom Teodorczuk for landing what would appear quite a scoop containing ON THE RECORD quotes. Below is a link:..
Oh look - I see Bloomborg last night published a piece that about Belgian insurer Ageas that is eerily similar to the one Betaville published a couple of weeks ago. I have pasted the links below:
Well that didn't take long.
An hour after Betaville published along came Bloomborg with a tale about how China Grand Enterprises, Inc. and its affiliate company Huadong Medicine Co made a takeover approach for London-listed Sinlcair Pharma, the face lift specialist.
Below is a link to the RNS confirmation:..
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:
I see Bloomberg has attempted to aggregate Betaville's paywall protected Betaville Intelligence article from earlier in the week on Charter Communications by attempting to second guess what the actual piece says without actually knowing what it says.
As Betaville has pointed out before, this is a dangerous game to play.....
This time last week Betaville was all aflutter after the Daily Mail splashed its business section and wrote a comment piece on the possiblity of Comcast making a £19 billion counter offer for FTSE 100-listed broadcaster Sky...
I see Bloomberg has written a piece about the upcoming sale of Texas-based mortgage provider Nationstar Mortgage Holdings Inc. Betaville would paste the link to the Bloomberg story below but for some reason it hasn't made it available to readers that don't have a terminal...
There is a good tale from team Bloomborg knocking around the wires this morning about one of the City's favourite sandwich shops, Pret a Manger, hiring banks for an IPO. Here is the link in case you missed it:
When I was a young reporter on The Daily Telegraph in the mid noughties working a late shift I was somewhat bamboozled by the first editions of the Daily Mail and The Daily Express.
Why?
Well, that's because the front page (of the main book) of one those newspapers led with a story about how prices are set to soar while the other claimed on the front page (of the main book, too) that houses prices were set to crash...
Two days on and the upper echelons of the financial media world are still picking over the carcass of the failed Kraft Heinz / 3G / Warren Buffett / Unilever deal.
Probably the best newspaper piece out there is the "tick tock" by Arash Massoudi and James Fontanella-Kahn in today's Financial Times. Here is the link in case you haven't read it:..
This is piece (see below) from Bloomberg is a great read and demonstrates how hedge funds found an interesting "edge" on the $30 billion Johnson & Johnson / Actelion deal.
A lot has been written about "fake news" over the last month so but how about ruminating on the growing amount of duff - or perhaps we should call them "fake" - denials.
Today, for example, French aerospace company Safran announced it is buying rival Zodiac Aerospace for EURO 8.5 billion...
Actelion is currently up just over 15pc and various hacks are claiming the "scoop" despite the fact the story hasn't even made into hard newsprint yet in one of the "newspapers of record" (Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph etc) or been confirmed by the Swiss company itself...
I see Bloomberg was today badgering Dr Severin Schwan, the Roche chief executive, into providing a denial to my BioMarin story from a few weeks ago.
According to the Bloomberg story I read today, Dr Schwan said Roche was looking at small to medium-sized acquistions although he believes biotech valuations are "too high" even after the recent market correction...