Business Secretary intervenes in Cobham’s £2.6bn bid for Ultra Electronics on national security grounds August 18, 2021 Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has stopped the planned £2.6bn acquisition of defence firm Ultra Electronics by rival US-owned Cobham, to investigate possible national security risks from the merged entities. The Competition and Markets Authority will now prepare a report on the proposed transaction. Customers of Ultra, which sells torpedo and radar systems and a range [...]
Ryanair warns passengers against using Kiwi.com’s ‘fake boarding passes’ August 18, 2021 Ryanair has issued a stark warning to summer holidaymakers against using “fake” boarding passes issued to them by online travel agent Kiwi.com. Passengers that attempt to board using the forms issued by Kiwi will be denied boarding, Ryanair said, adding more uncertainty to a chaotic summer of travel. Kiwi.com responded to the threat saying the [...]
Wealthy City bankers ‘ditched the UK for the EU ahead of Brexit,’ survey finds August 18, 2021 Almost a hundred highly paid bankers left the UK ahead of its formal exit from the EU, the bloc’s banking watchdog said today, in a sign of how Brexit has impacted the Square Mile. The European Banking Authority (EBA) said in its annual survey of bankers earning more than €1m (£850,000) that the UK’s total [...]
PM set to unveil ‘bespoke plan’ to help settle vulnerable Afghans in UK August 17, 2021 The Prime Minister will unveil a “bespoke” resettlement scheme for vulnerable Afghans as efforts to get British nationals and other support staff back to the UK continue. Boris Johnson would give more information about the refugee scheme in the coming days, with the policy anticipated to be focused on helping women and girls, Number 10 [...]
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 [...]
Cobham and Ultra Electronics reach £2.6bn deal with UK jobs guarantee to assuage ministers August 16, 2021 The boards of Cobham and Ultra Electronics have agreed terms of a £2.6bn takeover deal, that caused national security concerns for Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng last month. Cobham said the board at defence and engineering firm Ultra had backed backed the 3,500p per share that values it at £2.57bn. Shares in Ultra jumped out of [...]
FTSE: Ultra and Future soar but it’s not enough to lift London’s main index August 16, 2021 The FTSE 100 started off the week with a fall, as a rout on energy and mining shares could not be undone by a surge in the shares of Ultra Electronics and publishing house Future. The blue-chip FTSE 100 dropped 0.8 per cent, dragged down by miners Glencore, Anglo American and Rio Tinto and oil majors BP and Royal Dutch [...]
Rightmove: First monthly dip in UK house prices this year recorded in August August 16, 2021 The average price tag on a home dipped by just over £1,000 this month. Across the UK, the average asking price in August was £337,371, down by 0.3 per cent or £1,076 compared with July, Rightmove data out this morning shows. It marked the first monthly fall in the average price of property coming to [...]
Swiss miss: Domino’s bids farewell to Switzerland with final European franchise sale August 9, 2021 Domino’s Pizza Group has sold its last remaining franchises in Europe amid a withdrawal from the Continent to focus on its core UK and Irish markets. The pizza maker said its Swiss business had fetched 300,000 Swiss francs (£300,000) and the deal is expected to be completed this month. It ends a year-long process of [...]
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 [...]
