Afterpay marketing costs double in bid to secure US payments market August 25, 2021 Australian transactions firm Afterpay has watched its losses widen in the past year, as it ramped up costs in a bid to secure the US market. Marketing costs more than doubled in the year to June, as the firm attempted to capitalise on the pandemic-induced buy now, pay later (BNPL) services boom – which accompanied [...]
Goldman Sachs doubles managed assets to over $600bn with latest deal August 19, 2021 Goldman Sachs is set to buy Dutch insurance group NN’s asset management division for some €1.7bn – the Wall Street giant’s biggest acquisition since 2018. The deal for asset management arm NN Investment Partners (NNIP) forms part of Goldman Sachs boss David Solomon’s strategy to make the bank’s revenues less reliant on global markets and [...]
Saudi Aramco sizes up private equity and sovereign funds for $17bn gas pipeline stake August 16, 2021 Saudi Aramco is looking to raise at least $17bn from the sale of a significant minority stake in its gas pipelines, sources told Reuters today. A sale that large for a slice of the pipeline deal would be higher than the $12.4bn raised from its oil pipeline deal. Potential bidders including North American private equity [...]
Willis Towers Watson names investment head Carl Hess as next CEO August 16, 2021 Insurance giant Willis Towers Watson today named company insider Carl Hess as its next CEO and president, three weeks after the collapse of its planned $30bn (£22.9bn) mega-merger with rival Aon. Hess, who currently heads up the firm’s investment, risk and reinsurance segment, will step into current CEO John Haley’s shoes immediately upon his retirement [...]
US insurance giant Gallagher snaps up Willis reinsurance arm in $3.25bn deal August 13, 2021 US insurance giant Arthur J. Gallagher has announced it will buy the treaty reinsurance brokerage arm of Willis Towers Watson for a proposed cash consideration of $3.25bn (£2.35bn). It comes just over a fortnight after Willis agreed to terminate a $30bn (£22.9bn) merger agreement with Aon, in what would have created the world’s largest insurance [...]
Datasite executive Merlin Piscitelli on the UK’s fintech funding boom and the future of M&A August 13, 2021 British fintech investment across M&A deals, private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) has boomed as the country emerges from the pandemic, soaring in the first six months of 2021 to four times the $5.9bn invested during the whole of 2020. Investment in UK fintech has reached an all-time high as firms in the industry [...]
US casino operator Bally’s £2bn takeover of Gamesys inches closer August 11, 2021 The co-founder of British betting firm Gamesys has agreed to sell his shares in exchange for those of Bally’s, according to an announcement today, as the £2bn merger moves toward completion. In March Bally’s agreed in principle to buy UK firm Gamesys for $2.7bn (£2bn). Bally’s said it would pay 1,850 pence per share in [...]
Marlowe ditches its ‘unsolicited’ takeover bid of Restore August 10, 2021 Business services company Marlowe has today announced that it has withdrawn its takeover bid for fellow data services firm Restore after the companies could not come to an agreement. The board of Marlowe said it still believed that the deal would have been “strategically compelling,” but that the “offer price that would be required to secure [...]
Supermarket sweep: The fight for Morrisons heats up with Fortress increasing offer to £6.7bn August 6, 2021 The battle for control of one of the UK’s biggest supermarkets, Morrisons, has stepped up a notch today, with Fortress increasing its bid to £6.7bn. Fortress increased its offer to £6.7bn, or 272p per share when a 2p per share dividend is included, from £6.3bn earlier. The private equity consortium said said it “notes the [...]
FCA approves James Hay’s Nucleus acquisition, creating £47bn mega-platform August 6, 2021 Pensions provider James Hay gained the nod of approval from the UK’s financial regulator for its £145m acquisition of investment platform Nucleus, in one of the biggest UK deals in years. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) approved Hay’s purchase of Nucleus on Friday, paving the way for their creation of a mammoth financial adviser platform [...]