Hugh Osmond looks to a new Horizon September 19, 2011 HUGH Osmond is considering the creation of another shell company following the early success of Horizon, the listed vehicle he has used to buy the power business APR Energy. Yesterday shares in the newly-listed APR Energy started trading on the stock market following Horizon’s acquisition of APR Energy earlier in the year. Horizon initially raised [...]
UK firms snap up more rivals September 6, 2011 BRITISH companies took advantage of the weak global economic recovery to spend £10.2bn on acquisitions in the last quarter. The Office for National Statistics figures for April to June mark a slowdown on the first three months of the year, but are still the second highest since the first quarter of 2008. The largest acquisition [...]
APR Energy to relist at £1bn September 5, 2011 APR ENERGY, the temporary power company bought earlier this year by entrepreneur Hugh Osmond, said it intends to relist its shares on the London Stock Exchange this month. The re-listing comes just three months after Osmond’s investment vehicle Horizon bought the company for £527m. Horizon’s shares were temporarily suspended but will resume trading as APR [...]
Osmond venture lines Fairey up to chair Lloyds branches August 7, 2011 SUN Capital Partners has lined up former Lloyds deputy chief executive Mike Fairey to be chairman if the group’s bid for 632 of the bank’s branches is successful, a source confirmed yesterday. Sun Capital, a group of investors that includes Edward Spencer-Churchill and entrepreneur Hugh Osmond, has selected Fairey (pictured right) for his decade of [...]
Osmond in bank interest July 27, 2011 HUGH Osmond, the entrepreneur behind Pizza Express, Punch Taverns and the insurance group Pearl, has emerged as a surprise potential bidder for Lloyds Banking Group’s 632 branches that are up for sale. Sources close to Osmond say that he has been in discussion with Lloyds since the end of last year and is hopeful of [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING July 19, 2011 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ANGLO IRISH’S US PORTFOLIO DRAWS INTEREST Several banks, including Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo, are weighing bids for parts of nationalized Irish lender Anglo Irish Bank Corp’s US real-estate portfolio, according to people familiar with the matter. NOKIA EXPECTED TO GIVE DOWNBEAT FORECAST When [...]
Aggreko adds £30m to fleet spend budget June 20, 2011 AGGREKO, the temporary power supplier that provides energy for the Glastonbury festival, yesterday announced plans to boost investment in its fleet of equipment by £30m. The higher spending, which comes on top of a £70m increase announced in April, is intended to soothe fears that principal rival APR could steal market share. Despite reporting accelerated [...]
Vallares defies gravity in new issues market June 20, 2011 SEBASTIAN Grigg looked even more ebullient than usual when I bumpedinto him at the weekend. The Credit Suisse investment banker was as pleased as could be about the manner in which Nat Rothschild’s new acquisition vehicle Vallares had managed to raise £1.3bn in funds, with Grigg’s bank as the lead adviser. Grigg is not the [...]
RISING STAR OF THE YEAR | THE SHORTLIST DAY 2 June 20, 2011 LUCKILY for all of us the City is full of rising stars, people we all think will make it to the top. This year’s selection includes Sam Smith, who has been making waves as head of the small cap broker finnCap. We’ve chosen two high-flying lawyers, one investment analyst and a fast rising star from [...]
A drink with the master of UK entrepreneurship June 19, 2011 LUKE Johnson is a man who takes a while to introduce. He seems to have run, or had his hand in running, half of the middle-class high street. Pizza Express, Giraffe, Patisserie Valerie, Belgo, Strada, Feng Sushi, Baker and Spice, the Signature Restaurants that owned The Ivy and Le Caprice – to name a few. [...]