Mark, the "Kleinmanator", Kleinman of Sky News has gone for a Saturday afternoon wind up with a story about BT Group hiring Goldman Sachs and, maybe, Robey Warshaw to work on a defence ahead of a £15 billion takeover approach. Below is the link:
https://news.sky.com/story/bt-group-board-on-alert-for-15bn-takeover-approaches-12054366..
Is Morgan Stanley advising/financing GKSD and Gruppo San Donato on their potential bid for NMC Health?
The reason I posit this question is that there have been a series of disclosures suggesting that's the case without it being explicitly laid out. See below:..
They have been feted as Britain's top rainmakers. Yes, that's Sir Simon Robey and Simon Warshaw. Ever since they left their respective megabanks (Morgan Stanley and UBS) in 2013 and set up Robey Warshaw much smoke has been blown up their respective bottoms about how brilliant they are at advising some of Britain's biggest companies on mergers & acquisitions...
It struck me as odd whilst re-reading this morning's press release from Hong Kong Exchange that Moelis & Company, a mid-sized American M&A advisory firm, is the sole advisor to the Asian bourse on its takeover bid for the London Stock Exchange...
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...
Betaville's friends at The Insurance Insider have dug out a rather good tale about insurance broker Astron Lark, a company this website has written about over the last few months.
Indeed, below is a link to Betaville's orignal scoop:
https://www.betaville.co.uk/news/revealed-insurance-broker-aston-lark-set-for-300-m/..
Once you get past the acres of Brexit coverage there were some decent business jackanories knocking about in the Sunday papers today.
One story that caught Betaville's eye was a tucked away on page 2 of the Mail on Sunday's business section about how Mike Ashley is planning to hire new PR "experts" to look after his "growing retail group". Below is a link to Neil Craven's article:..
Goldman Sachs this evening restricted its equity research team from publishing a rating on Capita, according to sources familiar with the situation.
It's well known the Wall Street bank has been advising Capita and its (newish) chief executive, Jon Lewis, on the company's £700 million rights issue and the £700 million disposal programme, including the recent sale of parking management company Parkingeye to Macquarie and MML Capital for £235 million...
It has been brought to Betaville's attention that Investment bankers are all over WPP chairman Roberto Quarta, angling for permanent mandate as the company's financial advisor.
And you can see why corporate financiers are aggresively targeting the marketing services group set up by Sir Martin Sorrell in 1985...
Farewell, Sir Martin. The round the clock media coverage of the deal junkie ad man appears to have halted now that he has stepped down as chief executive of WPP, the marketing services giant he built over the last thirty years...
Tongues are wagging after BCA Marketplace sacked corporate brokers at JP Morgan and HSBC and replaced them with Goldman Sachs and Numis in one fell swoop.
https://www.investegate.co.uk/bca-marketplace-plc--bca-/rns/change-of-adviser/201802190726502352F/..
Josh Kosman's tale in the New York Post (see the link below) about Goldman Sachs pitching Boeing to make a $30 billion counterbid for Rockwell Collins caught Betaville's eye today.
http://nypost.com/2017/09/05/goldman-sachs-wanted-boeing-to-bid-on-airplane-parts-maker/..
Little old Betaville is in a particularly good mood this morning as another Intelligence scoopette has been confirmed.
This morning German broadcast giant Prosiebensat1 announced it has sold online travel Etraveli to CVC Capital Partners, one of Europe's largest private equity firms, for just over EURO 500 million. Here is a link to the Financial Times piece on the news:..
Now that the bid battle for Stada appears to be done and dusted (you never know, though, there could be a final twist) little old Betaville would like to remind readers of the piece I published in early December about how the German pharmaceutical company was working with bankers on "strategic options" after receiving informal expressions of interest. Below is the link to the piece:..
German broadcasting giant Prosiebensat1 has appointed investment bankers to work on a potental sale of online travel agent Etraveli.
Sources familiar with the matter said Prosiebesat1 has asked Goldman Sachs run a potential auction, which may include a disposal of all or part of Etraveli.
According to one source, Goldman Sachs has already prepared a short information memorandum on Etraveli for potential buyers containing some financial information...
The billionaire Reuben Brothers could be about to make another multi-million pound cash windfall from the sale of one of their businesses.
City sources the brothers are considering a sale of Metro International Trade Services, a metal warehousing company, after receiving approaches from potential buyers. I understand one of the purchasers is a mystery Chinese company...
German drug company Stada Arzneimittel has begun working with financial advisers to weigh the group's "strategic options".
According to two sources familiar with the matter, generic drug group Stada is said to be working with bankers from Goldman Sachs after receiving informal expressions of interest from potential acquirers...
It would appear one of the world's most powerful investment banks has landed a role on the Reuben Brothers' £5.2 billion sale of data storage company Global Switch to a group of Chinese investors.
Top sources have told little old Betaville Goldman Sachs has picked up a mandate advising on the deal, first revealed in the The Sunday Times a month or so ago...
I note Deal Reporter and its sister publication PARR followed up little old Betaville's tale from a couple of months ago on Cypress Semiconductors. In case you don't recall, here is a link to that piece:..
French industrial gases giant Air Liquide is exploring a sale of the company that invented Scuba diving equipment and was founded by the well-known oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.
Air Liquide has asked bankers at Goldman Sachs to find a buyer for Aqua Lung, which was formerly known as La Spirotechnique. People familiar with the matter said information packs have already been sent to potential buyers, many of whom are likely to be private equity firms...
French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi is working on a back up plan in case it fails to win its $9.3 billion hostile pursuit of US-listed Medivation.
Top sources have told me the French pharmaceutical giant has begun looking at US-based rare disease specialist BioMarin Pharmaceutical as a potential alternative takeover deal after growing frustrated in its pursuit of Medivation, which has so far resisted the French company's advances...