The co-founder of German online retailer Zalando said the firm will focus this year on getting its core markets to profitability amid mounting speculation the fashion site could be ready for a listing as early as 2014, writes Reuters. Zalando is backed by JP Morgan Asset Management and Quadrant Capital.
3 min read · 25 April 2013
GlaxoSmithKline is to sell soft drink brands Lucozade and Ribena in a move analysts believe will raise over 1 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) and focus its consumer health business on global products, writes Reuters. The plan was announced alongside first-quarter results that saw sales at Britain's biggest drugmaker drop a slightly smaller-than-expected 3 percent from a year ago.
4 min read · 25 April 2013
Private equity groups are paying themselves and their investors by getting the European firms they own to raise cash by issuing debt in volumes not seen since before the financial crisis, writes Reuters. This is common when the economy is healthy because companies can use profits to meet repayments but is controversial at a time when the economic environment in Europe is poor, writes Reuters.
3 min read · 25 April 2013
(Reuters) - Emergency Medical Services Corp., bought by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice LLC in 2011, has selected Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS.N), Barclays Plc (BARC.L) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) to lead the underwriting of a $750 million IPO that may come in the third quarter, sources told Reuters.
2 min read · 25 April 2013
Five private equity groups are set to bid for Springer Science+Business Media, owned by private equity firm EQT and sovereign wealth fund GIC, writes Reuters. While EQT and GIC are hoping to reap as much as 4 billion euros ($5.2 billion) for the German speciality publisher of scientific journals, the prospective buyers are unlikely to offer much more than a price tag of slightly over 3 billion euros, writes Reuters.
2 min read · 24 April 2013
Swedish private equity firm Altor said on Wednesday it had agreed to sell its stake in Danish food services firm Euro Cater to a group of reinvesting employees that have partnered with investment firm Intermediate Capital Group PLC, writes Reuters. Altor said in a statement it expected to finalise the deal, which was subject to approval from competition authorities, in the second quarter.
1 min read · 24 April 2013
Investment banks Deutsche Bank and Mainfirst are placing up to 2 percent in German chemical company Evonik at a fixed price of 32.20 per share, writes Reuters. The shares will be sold exclusively to institutional investors ahead of a public listing planned for Thursday in a private placement on behalf of the RAG foundation, a public-sector trust that will bear the liabilities of Germany's wound-down coal mines, and private equity group CVC.
1 min read · 24 April 2013
Chinese firm Cathay Fortune Corp, the top shareholder and a former suitor of Australia's Discovery Metals Ltd, has proposed a fresh offer to buy the copper miner as long as Discovery halts a planned equity raising, writes Reuters. The private equity firm founded by Chinese billionaire Yu Yong is targeting Discovery for its Boseto project in Botswana, which is within the Kalahari copper belt region that has attracted billions of dollars in takeovers in the past two years.
2 min read · 24 April 2013
(Reuters) - Henry "Hank" Morris, once chief political adviser to disgraced ex-New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, will be out of prison by June 3 after serving more than two years for his role in a "pay-to-play" scheme at the state pension fund. A board granted Morris parole after a hearing on Monday. What did he do with his time in prison? He said he had written a pilot for a television show, a screenplay and a "large chunk of a book."
2 min read · 24 April 2013
(Reuters) - Google has acquired news-summary app maker Wavii for about $30 million in cash, just weeks after Yahoo paid a similar amount to buy Wavii competitor Summly.
2 min read · 24 April 2013
