Rothschild and Hayward in £1bn float June 9, 2011 CITY financier Nat Rothschild and former BP chief executive Tony Hayward set out plans yesterday to raise £1bn in a flotation of their investment vehicle Vallares in London. The scion of the banking dynasty and former City heavyweight have joined forces to launch Vallares as a cash shell to acquire and expand high-growth but cash-poor [...]
Samsonite cuts size of Hong Kong IPO June 9, 2011 Samsonite International, the world’s biggest luggage maker, narrowed the indicative price range of its Hong Kong initial public offer, the latest sign of weak investor appetite for richly-priced deals. Today’s decision by private equity-backed Samsonite comes a day after state media reported that Nanning Baling Technology became the first company in the 20-year history of [...]
Rothschild and Hayward’s Vallares to seek £1bn IPO June 9, 2011 Financier Nat Rothschild and former BP chief executive Tony Hayward intend to raise £1bn through a blockbuster IPO in London of their vehicle Vallares. The IPO is planned for this month to raise capital to fund a major acquisition in the resources or oil and gas sector, its keenly-awaited intention to float says. Vallares will [...]
CITY AT WAR June 7, 2011 Advisers blame each other for seizure of IPO market FEUDING has broken out between all the key players within the City of London’s crucial fundraising business, in a development that threatens to devastate confidence in London’s faltering flotations market. Key advisers, investors and bookrunners are at loggerheads and briefing against each other, in the worst breakdown [...]
Why all sides need to stop and relax June 7, 2011 IT is time for the City to get its act together: it is in danger of ceasing to function as a proper, efficient platform for raising money for firms seeking to go public, an untenable situation. As our special investigation on pages 1-4 of today’s newspaper demonstrates, the market for corporate floats has almost ground [...]
London IPO market is close to seizure June 7, 2011 GLENCORE recently pulled off a $11bn flotation, London’s largest ever, but the past few months have otherwise been pretty desultory in terms of new companies coming to market. Some blame last year’s flotation of Ocado, the online grocer, for starting the rot. Ocado’s share price has recovered well from its early post-IPO malaise but bankers [...]
Commodities lift FTSE and offset weak banks and travel June 6, 2011 STRENGTH in commodity stocks helped Britain’s leading share index edge higher yesterday, offsetting weakness in banks and travel stocks, as some of the recent gloom lifted in the absence of further glum data. The FTSE 100 closed up 8.15 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 5,863.16 points, adding to Friday’s 0.1 per cent gain after [...]
Stocks suffer on global growth fears June 6, 2011 Stocks have fallen this morning on a hangover from weak US employment data on Friday, and falls in Asian markets overnight. US non-farm payroll data showing just 54,000 new jobs were created in May shocked the markets, leaving the Nasdaq 1.5 per cent lower. In Asia, the Nikkei fell to an 11-week closing low today [...]
A man on a mission to the Moonpig.com June 5, 2011 MOONPIG was a nickname I had at school,” says Nick Jenkins. “I needed a two syllable domain name, something comic and unique on Google.” It took him four days of checking potential names on Network Solutions to stumble upon Moonpig. Now a household name, it is also one of the UK’s fastest growing and most [...]
EIB calls halt to Glencore finance May 31, 2011 THE European Investment Bank (EIB) has suspended new financing to Glencore over concerns about the mining giant’s alleged tax avoidance in Zambia. The bank, which is the European Union’s financing arm, had already agreed to lend $50m (£30 million) to Glencore to renovate a smelter and reduce sulphur dioxide emissions at its Mopani Copper Mines [...]