The Festival of Words: From Gyles Brandreth to Anthony Scaramucci – all you need to know about the Fleet Street Quarter festival
As Aviva agrees a £5.6bn takeover of Friends Life, does the acquisition make strategic sense? December 2, 2014 Ben Cohen, an insurance analyst at Canaccord Genuity, says Yes. Aviva’s core strategy is “cash plus growth”, and this deal adds materially to cash flow, which will be used to pay a higher dividend and invest across the group for growth. This is not just jam tomorrow – the 30 per cent increase in Aviva’s [...]
Carillion fallout pushes UK M&A deals to all-time lows – but values have risen December 2, 2014 A dry summer for UK mergers and acquisitions, in which Carillion gave up its £2.1bn attempt to to buy Balfour Beatty, has helped to ensure volumes remained at historic lows. The number of deals involving UK companies fell to 67 in the third quarter of 2014, according to figures from the Office of National Statistics released [...]
Aviva agrees £5.6bn deal to buy Friends Life December 2, 2014 Aviva, the multinational insurance company, is putting the finishing touches on a deal to acquire rival Friends Life for £5.6bn. According to a statement released this morning, the proposed deal for the recommended all-share acquisition will mean Friends Life shareholders receive 0.74 new Aviva shares for each Friends Life share in their inventory, meaning Friends [...]
Oil giant BG Group backs down over new chief Helge Lund’s pay pack December 1, 2014 Pressure from shareholders has forced oil firm BG Group to revise its remuneration package for incoming chief executive Helge Lund and reduce his share award from £10m to £4.7m. The company stated that a “significant number” of shareholders had questioned the structure of the original proposed pay package, in particular asking whether it was [...]
Apple’s $700bn smash, Black Friday misery: 10 things we learned this week November 28, 2014 1. In the future, cats will change colour when they go near radiation (maybe). Someone’s already written a nursery rhyme about it 2. Londoners take “painting the town red” rather more literally than you might think: by a vast majority, they prefer red wine to any other type, reckons Naked Wines 3. Aviva [...]
Too soon to write off Aviva’s £5.6bn bid for Friends Life – Editor’s Letter November 26, 2014 Aviva’s New Zealand-born chief executive Mark Wilson comes from a family of insurance people and has been an investor in insurance companies since he was 15. Maybe it’s that pedigree that gives him the confidence to press ahead with a strategy that is being doubted by many experts. When he first came into Aviva, he [...]
Friends Life and Aviva started merger talks months ago November 26, 2014 Insurance firm Aviva has been in talks about a potential merger with Friends Life for a number of months, City A.M. understands. Discussions began when Aviva chief executive Mark Wilson contacted his opposite number at Friends Life, Andy Briggs. But it was only on Friday when Aviva was forced to confirm the talks due to [...]
Aviva merger target Friends Life eyed up deal with closed insurance group Phoenix November 25, 2014 Friends Life, which is in merger talks with Aviva, has held informal talks with Phoenix, the closed insurance group, about a possible deal in the past few months, City A.M. understands. News of the talks between the two groups, which are not ongoing and did not reach any conclusion, come as Aviva struggles to convince [...]
Aviva meets criticism over Friends Life deal November 24, 2014 Analysts have warned that Aviva’s share price could continue to decline, following news that the insurance group is in talks concerning a £5.6bn merger with rival Friends Life. Shares dropped by more than five per cent yesterday when the markets opened for the first time since the news broke. “The market is in a state [...]
Aviva share price falls as Friends Life shares rise: Surprised market reacts to deal bombshell November 24, 2014 The market was divided yesterday following the announcement of a planned merger between insurer Aviva and its competitor Friends Life. Aviva saw its shares fall by more than five per cent during the day, while shares in Friends Life climbed by six per cent. Most analysts agreed that the announcement was surprising, with [...]