Morrisons suitor CD&R gears up to beat Fortress bid August 16, 2021 New York bidder Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) is gearing up to place its counter-bid to the leading £10bn Fortress offer for Wm Morrison supermarkets before its deadline next Friday. CD&R planted the seed for the ongoing private equity bidding war for the British supermarket in June, when it placed a 230p per share offer [...]
London Stock Exchange Group sees profits recover from 2020’s wave of pandemic uncertainty August 6, 2021 The London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has seen its total profits recover in response to pandemic uncertainty which rocked its financial markets in the first half of 2020. Total profit hit £2.7bn in the six months to 30 June, up from just £914m in the first half of last year when the stock market faced [...]
US stocks struggle for direction amid weakening economic outlook August 3, 2021 US stocks opened broadly flat on Tuesday morning as investors tempered trading activity amid a weakening economic outlook. While the Nasdaq dipped 0.34 per cent, the blue-chip S&P 500 edged 0.03 per cent higher and the Dow Jones added 0.18 per cent. The reinstating of Covid curbs in many states of America, including mandating mask [...]
China securities watchdog seeks closer cooperation with US after Didi crackdown August 2, 2021 The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has said it will enhance communication with its US counterpart on overseas listing after US regulators tightened disclosure for Chinese companies. The Chinese securities regulator said it had noticed the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new disclosure requirements for Chinese companies’ listings. It added the two sides should [...]
SEC halts Wall Street IPOs of Chinese companies as mulls new risk disclosures July 30, 2021 The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has frozen registrations of Chinese companies for IPOs on US markets while it drafts new guidance for disclosing the risk of a Beijing regulatory crackdown to investors. Chinese companies must not submit registrations for the sales of securities to the SEC until it has formulated new rules on how [...]
Uber shares slide as SoftBank look to soften blow of Didi NYSE chaos July 29, 2021 Uber shares have fallen after reports that technology investment firm SoftBank is selling a third of its stake in the ride-hailing app. SoftBank is thought to be planning to offload up to 45 million shares, at an overall value of around $2bn. The Japanese investment group bet big on Didi ahead of its New York [...]
Wechat suspends new user registration amid China crackdown July 27, 2021 Chinese social media giant Wechat has temporarily suspended new user registrations as Beijing ramps up its crackdown on domestic tech firms. The messaging platform, which is owned by Tencent, said it was upgrading its security technology “to align with relevant laws and registrations”. “During this time, registration of new Weixin [Wechat] personal and official accounts [...]
Tencent shares fall after Beijing orders end to exclusive music rights deals July 26, 2021 Shares in Tencent have fallen after China ordered the company to end exclusive music licensing agreements with record labels across the world. The move is said to be aimed at tackling the technology giant’s dominance of online streaming in the country. They must cease engaging in any of these deals in the future and any [...]
Bill Ackman remixes Universal Music deal after SPAC plan questioned July 19, 2021 Billionaire investor Bill Ackman has been forced to rejig a $4bn deal to buy a 10 per cent stake in Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, after investors and regulators criticised his original SPAC plan. Pershing had agreed last month to buy 10 per cent of the world’s largest music company through a blank-cheque company called Pershing [...]
China places state investigators in Didi’s offices to conduct security probe July 16, 2021 Beijing’s heavyweight state spy industry and six other government departments have swooped on ride-hailing app Didi Chuxing’s offices to conduct a security investigation. The bold move comes after Chinese authorities opened an investigation into Didi for allegedly violating user privacy, just days after its $4.4bn listing in New York last month. As of yet, there [...]