Dutch software maker for top UK firms taken private for €1bn November 18, 2013 THE PRIVATE equity backer of UK sofa store DFS yesterday agreed to take a Dutch software provider for businesses like EDF Energy and Lloyds Bank private for about €1.2bn. Advent International, which also owns share service Equiniti, has agreed to buy listed firm Unit4 at €38.75 a share, giving shareholders a 55 per cent premium [...]
Teachers have sweet tooth for biscuit maker November 18, 2013 BURTON’S Biscuits, the company behind retro favourites Jammie Dodgers and Wagon Wheels, was sold yesterday to a Canadian pension fund investor for £350m. The biscuit-maker, which also makes Maryland Cookies, will be taken over by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s private equity unit after Ontario beat 30 other suitors to take control of the coveted business. [...]
Low-key pension fund that owns $4bn of UK assets November 18, 2013 Housed in a discreet Georgian terrace-lined street in Mayfair lies one of the world’s most powerful and influential investors. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan – which aims to pay the pensions of 300,00 retired and current Canadian teachers – would appear a cuddlier proposition than some of its hedge fund neighbours, but its deal making prowess [...]
Lord Rothschild slashes dollar holdings amid £250m fund rise November 18, 2013 LORD Rothschild, scion of banking’s famous dynasty, halved his fund’s exposure to the dollar while building a bigger position in sterling, new results show. RIT Capital Partners, his listed investment trust, cut dollar holdings to 41 per cent at the end of October from 80 per cent in June, while increasing sterling from 31 per [...]
France criticised as trade figures fail to impress November 18, 2013 FRANCE’S economic woes are showing little sign of improvement, with analysts pointing to a notably poor performance in trade data from the Eurozone for the first nine months of the year. Berenberg chief economist Holger Schmieding called France “the real sick man of Europe”, adding: “The major reason why France now sticks out as the [...]
Regulator says too few European banks have been wound down November 18, 2013 TOO FEW European banks have been wound down over the past few years, the chairman of the European Banking Authority (EBA), Andrea Enria, was quoted as saying in an interview published yesterday. Enria told German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that governments tend to want to keep their lenders operational rather than let them fail, which [...]
Spain bad loans hit record high November 18, 2013 SPANISH banks’ bad loans as a percentage of total lending rose to 12.7 per cent in September from 12.1 per cent in August – a new high, Bank of Spain data showed yesterday. The ratio has been steadily climbing as households and small companies struggle with debts and as banks, fighting to improve their own [...]
Yields drop on Italian bonds November 18, 2013 ITALIAN bonds edged higher yesterday as investors attracted by prospects of a more stable government and ultra-easy central bank policy snapped up the five-year debt on offer in an exchange operation. The Treasury assigned €3.3bn of December 2018 bonds in exchange for five bonds due in 2015 and 2017 in a bid to ease its [...]
Mortgage sizes boosted as Help to Buy kicks off November 18, 2013 THE SIZE of the average mortgage swelled in October, reaching the highest level against house prices since January 2009, according to figures released by Mortgage Advice Bureau (MAB) today. In the month that the second phase of the government’s Help to Buy scheme of mortgage guarantees began, MAB says that the average loan-to-value (LTV) rate [...]
Dividends and insurance claims to be paid via smartphone app November 18, 2013 INSURANCE claims, dividends and refunds from firms can be paid via smartphone app PingIt, Barclays announced today, in the latest phase of its mobile payments war with other lenders and cross-bank offering Zapp. Previously PingIt has been used for person-to-person payments and customer-to-company transfers, and is on offer to customers of any bank. But now [...]
