It is almost a year since BHP Billiton abandoned its $62bn pursuit of Rio Tinto and…
people are starting to speculate.
Earlier this week, the Australian Financial Review asked whether BHP might bid again if the proposed iron ore joint venture (IOJV) between the two companies collapses.
Hidden away in British Airways’ half-year results is this tidbit:
That means British Airways NAPS pension liabilities now stand at a whopping £2.66bn — more than twice the £1.17bn reported at the end of last fiscal year.
At the end of October, FT Alphaville came across some strange goings on in Oracle’s pending $7bn acquisition of Sun Microsystems.
Oracle had withdrawn its Russian antitrust filing, an unexplained move prompting speculation the deal was about to unravel.
Germany and Russia reacted furiously to General Motors’ surprise decision this week to abandon the sale of Opel/Vauxhall to Canada’s Magna and Russia’s Sberbank and set the stage for a fresh confrontation between Germany and GM,
Siguler Guff, the US group specialising in emerging markets and distressed debt investments, has made a rare private equity investment in a Russian bank by acquiring a stake in MDM Bank, one of the country’s biggest lenders.
China is forcing Panasonic to sell off assets in Japan to secure approval for its acquisition of Sanyo Electric, the first time Chinese competition authorities have compelled disposals outside of the country in a monopoly review.
Aviva, the UK’s second-biggest insurer, will examine the break-up of ING to see if it will yield any acquisition opportunities, according to Andrew Moss, Aviva’s CEO. The Dutch financial services group is selling its insurance and investment management business in order to win European Commission approval for the receipt of state aid.
Kraft’s third quarter earnings might have been delivered with jazz hands-a-waving, but those looking for hints of a heavily sweetened Cadbury offer were left disappointed.
While “remaining interested”,
Elsewhere on Wednesday,
- If the economy’s stagnant, why are stocks up?
- The edge: a golden opportunity remains.
- On the clash of economic theories (and commentators).
- John Paulson once had self-doubts.
Breaking pre-market news on Wednesday,
- Societe Generale Q3 net doubles on investment bank - statement.
- Bank of Ireland H1 income falls 73 per cent to €162m - statement.
- BNP Paribas still looking at Societe Generale La Tribune newspaper says;
Warren Buffett on Tuesday struck his biggest deal with the $26.6bn purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe, one of the largest US railroad operators, in what the billionaire investor called an “all-in wager” on America’s economic future.
GM has abandoned its planned sale of Opel to Canada’s Magna and Russia’s Sberbank, dealing a blow to Germany, which has spent months negotiating the controversial deal, as well as to the buyers. After a board meeting on Tuesday,
Morgan Stanley has restarted the sale of its stake in China International Capital Corp, China’s first joint-venture investment bank that it helped found in 1995, a move that could fetch more than $1bn,
Oracle is braced for a formal objection from Brussels to its planned $7.4bn acquisition of fellow US tech company Sun Microsystems, escalating the company’s legal wrangle with Europe’s competition authorities.
Foreign private equity funds are this week expected to submit bids for Axa’s minority stake in Taikang Life, China’s fourth-largest insurer, which has been valued at up to $1bn. First-round bids are due by Friday and various overseas investors have signalled interest in the French insurer’s 15.6% stake,
The government of Ghana on Tuesday night said it would renegotiate Vodafone’s $900m purchase of Ghana Telecom, a leading local group after an official review into alleged “irregularities” in the deal.
Gavan Nolan of Markit wrote this CDS report
European credit markets widened and stocks declined as investors fretted over the outcome of monetary policy meetings later this week. The Markit iTraxx Europe index was trading around 91bp,
Having been hit by a slew of bad news on Tuesday afternoon in London, things were not looking too good for shareholders in aircraft parts wholesaler Aero Inventory.
Not only is the inventory valuation issue,
Is this the most expensive train set ever?
No it’s this one!
Yup, yup. In one fell swoop Warren Buffett has potentially achieved an ambition of a lifetime and got himself a train set (that is,
Lloyds Banking Group and RBS, the part-nationalised UK banks, are set to outline moves to raise a combined £54bn in fresh funding, in a radical reshaping of Britain’s finance industry. Alistair Darling,
Royal Bank of Scotland on Monday said it was considering further asset sales “not initially contemplated”, as part of the talks with the government aimed at breaking free from a state-backed asset insurance scheme.
Stanley Works has agreed to purchase Black & Decker for $4.5bn in an all-stock tie-up uniting two big US household brands. Stanley, which makes hand tools, will pay a 22% premium, based on Friday’s close,
Whither art thou, The Return of M&A?
The arm-flailing excitement elicited by Kraft’s pursuit of Cadbury has not yet been matched by many other large-scale cross border deals.
M&A bankers in private may boast that they are busy again,
So asked the New York Times this weekend in a 3,000 word article this weekend, that eventually came to the conclusion that a debt-for-equity swap was probably, sort of, the only answer to the bank’s problems.
Elsewhere on Monday, and on the weekend,
- More Goldman - how it secretly bet on the US housing crash.
- Roubini on dollar carry reversal - “he’s only halfway there”.
- Can Citigroup Carry Its Own Weight?
- It’s Japan we should be worrying about.
Breaking pre-market news on Monday,
- Royal Bank of Scotland says it is close to deal on APS, sees some unplanned EC-forced divestments - statement.
- Dragon Oil says Emirates National Oil Company to buy remaining stake in company for 455p a share - statement.
Santander will be allowed to bid for RBS’s network of 312 business-focused branches, under competition rules agreed between London and Brussels. The Spanish banking group owns nearly 14% of the UK retail banking market but has less than 8% of the small-business lending market.
Denbury Resources, a US independent oil and gas company, said on Sunday it had agreed to buy fellow independent Encore Acquisition in a transaction valued at $4.5bn, including the value of the minority interest in Encore Energy Partners.
Constellation Brands, the world’s largest wine producer by sales, said it is in talks to merge its Australian and UK operations with rival Australian Vintage, in an effort to combat a deep slump in the Australian wine industry,
Brady Dougan, chief executive of Credit Suisse, said that the coming months would create big opportunities for institutions such as CS that had emerged from the credit crisis with a strong balance sheet.
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