Manchester billionaire tables £583m offer for property developer Harworth August 6, 2026 Billionaire-owned Peel Group has tabled a £583m offer for Harworth as the property developer is poised to become the latest firm to exit the London Stock Exchange. The offer of 172.5p per share represents a premium of 20.1 per cent compared to Harworth’s closing share price yesterday and a 36.9 per cent premium above the [...]
Starling plans to ‘come out swinging’ in diversification bid August 6, 2026 Bernadette Smith has a spring in her step as she sits down in Starling’s headquarters to discuss her new role. The fintech’s new banking boss is buzzing with energy that she wants to pass onto customers and investors. “I want everyone to be talking about us,” she says, envisaging how she will measure success in [...]
Mike Ashley’s Frasers ups stake in Hugo Boss as takeover pressure mounts July 21, 2026 Frasers Group has pushed its stake in Hugo Boss above the threshold forcing it to make an offer for the whole firm, piling pressure on the German fashion house to accept its £1.7bn bid. The fashion group, which owns Sports Direct and Flannels, said on Tuesday that it had bought 2.5m new shares in Hugo [...]
FTSE 100 property firm slams ‘opportunistic, one-sided, inadequate’ takeover offer July 8, 2026 Real estate investment trust Segro has issued a strongly-worded rebuttal of the £12.6bn takeover bid tabled by its US rival. In a scathing updated to investors, the FTSE 100 property firm branded Prologis’s offer “opportunistic, one-sided and inadequate”, after the American investment behemoth proposed combining the two companies into a mammoth investment trust last month. [...]
Billionaire Easyjet founder in line for £800m payday from takeover July 6, 2026 Easyjet founder Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou could be in line for a bumper £800m payday as part of the airline’s proposed takeover by private equity firm Castlelake. The British-Cypriot entrepreneur, who founded the company in 1995, holds some 116m shares in the budget carrier and will net a huge payout should he decide to sell his [...]
Sky buys ITV broadcasting arm in £1.6bn deal July 6, 2026 Sky has confirmed it will take over ITV’s broadcasting arm for £1.6bn, in a move the media giant says will safeguard its role as a public service broadcaster. The US-owned broadcaster said on Monday it will pay £1.6bn in total for ITV Media and Entertainment, which include its free-to-air TV channels in the UK and [...]
Government intervenes on foreign takeover bids for UK defence firms July 2, 2026 Ministers have intervened in a flurry of foreign takeover attempts on British defence firms in the past year over concerns the bids posed a threat to national security, City AM can reveal. The government unit that scrutinises takeovers “called in” 24 proposed bids from foreign buyers between the first quarter of 2025 and the end [...]
London becomes activist capital of Europe as investors pressure firms over AI plans July 1, 2026 London has become the shareholder activist capital of Europe as boardrooms feel the heat of interventions from outspoken investors. The UK’s capital markets were the subject of a staggering 57 per cent of all European campaign activity in the first half of the year, fresh data has found, crossing the 50 per cent threshold for [...]
‘Sh*tloads to come’: London takeover spree set to accelerate June 29, 2026 At a gathering of some of London’s top bankers in the City of London last week, the mood was one of uncertainty. On the one hand, London’s dealmakers are not in want of work. In the past two weeks alone Easyjet has opened the door to an approach from American private equity firm Castlelake, Ramsdens [...]
HSBC bags £135m from former Silicon Valley Bank as job cuts push up restructuring bill June 24, 2026 The rescued UK wing of Silicon Valley Bank has paid another bumper dividend to HSBC as it racked up costs amid a sweeping restructure. HSBC Innovation Banking – the branding bestowed on the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank UK (SVBUK) – was taken over by Europe’s largest lender in March 2023 as ministers, regulators and banking [...]