SPAC frenzy holds valuable lessons for the UK May 6, 2021 | City Talk The explosive growth in Special Acquisition Purpose Company (SPAC) listings – shell companies listed on the stock exchange with the purpose of ‘reversing-in’ to another company and taking it public by the backdoor, has so far been a purely US phenomenon. However, other markets are now catching on. The value of listings by SPACs grew [...]
Exclusive: UK private equity firms pool £20bn fire power as they circle higher value targets April 29, 2021 The total value of UK private equity club deals reached £19.7bn last year, a fourfold increase from the £4.5bn in 2019. Moreover, the number of club deals has reached a three-year high as there were 56 deals in 2020, a jump of 30 per cent from 43 the year before, according to new data that [...]
Exclusive: Private equity firms strike £10bn of carve-out deals as pandemic drives sale of non-core units April 28, 2021 Private equity firms made £10.1bn of corporate carve-out acquisitions in the UK last year, up from just £765m in 2019 as the Covid-19 pandemic drove more corporates to sell non-core business units, according to new data shared with City A.M. this evening. The economic disruption of the past year has forced many large businesses to [...]
Equiniti receives sweetened £661m takeover bid from US private equity firm April 28, 2021 Equiniti Group has received a revised offer from US private equity investor Siris Capital, to buy the outsourcer for around £661m in cash. Siris revised its bid to 180 pence per share following discussions, London-listed Equiniti said. In early April, Siris submitted a non-binding proposal for 170 pence per share, which Equiniti said it would evaluate “carefully [...]
Sunday Sitdown: Investors look past political changes as Brexit offers a chance to alter investment regulation, says City veteran April 18, 2021 More than 440 firms in banking and financial services have relocated part of their business, moved employees or set up new entities in the EU following Brexit. Dublin and Paris are the go-to destinations, as banks have moved or plan to move more than £900bn in assets to the EU, equivalent to 10 per cent [...]
More money into stocks in the past five months than the last 12 years, BofA says April 9, 2021 Investors have injected more money into equity funds in the last five months than over the last 12 years, according to Bank of America data. An eyewatering $576bn has been invested since December, over the peak of the GameStop surge, and topped the $452bn that had been raised over 12 years. The Bank of America’s [...]
More than half of PE and VC firms have all-white investment teams March 17, 2021 Private equity and VC firms are making great strides with gender diversity but the industry is still significantly lagging on ethnic minority representation, according to new research. Analysis by the British Venture Capital and Private Equity Association (BVCA) and Level 20 reveals all male investment teams have declined from 28 per cent in 2018 to [...]
Exclusive: London asset manager Apis hires team from PE firm Actis March 9, 2021 Knightsbridge-based financial services firm Apis has recruited a team from private equity group Actis, the firms shared with City A.M. this morning. Cairo-based Hossam Abou Moussa will join Apis as a partner, together with two other investment professionals. As a result of the recruitment drive, Apis will now have 30 financial services professionals and staff, [...]
Hurst Point completes acquisition of Hawksmoor Group March 2, 2021 Private equity firm Hurst Point Group has fully acquired Hawksmoor Group, completing the transaction on 1 March 2021. Investment management firm Hawksmoor will become a separate subsidiary of Hurst Point. Hawksmoor CEO Sarah Soar said: “Today marks a landmark in the history of Hawksmoor. Becoming part of the Hurst Point Group gives us support to [...]
Maybe analyst recommendations DO add value February 16, 2021 | City Talk This is something all investors know for a fact: following analyst buy or sell recommendations isn’t going to lead to outperformance in the long run. Or is it? A new study may cast some doubt on the conventional wisdom. In “Analyst Recommendations and Anomalies Across the Globe,” Vitor Azevedo and Sebastian Müller, CFA, examine 3.8 million analyst forecasts in [...]