Revised takeover offers for Australia's Billabong International Ltd have come in considerably lower than indicative bids, with the highest valuing the struggling surwear firm at only A$287 million ($300 million), the Australian Financial Review reported on Friday. A consortium comprising Billabong's former U.S. boss Paul Naude and private equity firm Sycamore Partners has put forward an offer of about A$0.60 cents per share, while a rival group made up of private equity firm Altamont Capital Partners and U.S. clothing group VF Corp has offered less than A$.50 cents per share, it said.
2 min read · 05 April 2013
Private equity group CVC Capital Partners has appointed nine banks for its planned sale of 25 to 30 percent of Belgium's postal service bpost on the stock market, Reuters reported. The flotation, expected in the coming months, would be the first sizeable initial public offering in Brussels since biotech firm Movetis raised 85 million euros ($109 million) at the end of 2009 and the largest since zinc smelter Nyrstar raised 1.74 billion euros in 2007.
2 min read · 04 April 2013
Private equity firms TPG Capital and Madison Dearborn Partners are the two finalists bidding for National Financial Partners, a New York-based wealth management company with a market value of nearly $900 million, Reuters reported. NFP - run by Jessica Bibliowicz, the daughter of former Citigroup chief Sandy Weill - could be valued at around $1 billion in a deal, the people said on Wednesday, asking not to be named because details of the auction are confidential.
2 min read · 04 April 2013
AstraZeneca boosted its early-stage pipeline of experimental heart drugs on Wednesday by buying privately held U.S. biotechnology company AlphaCore Pharma, which is developing a new type of cholesterol medicine, Reuters reported. The deal shows AstraZeneca's new Chief Executive Pascal Soriot taking on more scientific risks by betting on a new and still unproven approach to cardiovascular medicine. Financial details of the acquisition by the British drugmaker's MedImmune unit were not disclosed but the amount paid will have been modest since AstraZeneca was not obliged to disclose it as a material investment.
3 min read · 04 April 2013
Dish Network, controlled by billionaire chairman Charlie Ergen, has priced a debt offering of $2.3 billion, more than double the amount of debt than it said it would offer a day ago, Reuters reported. The company, which made a $2.3 billion bid to buy a minority stake in wireless service provider Clearwire Corp. in January, said the proceeds of the debt offering could be used for "wireless and spectrum-related strategic transactions."
2 min read · 04 April 2013
Clear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc. agreed to settle a shareholder lawsuit seeking to rescind an allegedly improper loan that the billboard advertising company made to its ailing parent Clear Channel Communications Inc. The loan "so significantly" depleted Clear Channel Outdoor's cash reserves that the company was forced to borrow $2 billion to fund a special dividend, according to the lawsuit filed in Delaware's Chancery Court in March last year. Clear Channel Communications Inc and its owners, private equity firms Bain Capital and Thomas H Lee Partners, were also named as defendants.
2 min read · 04 April 2013
Carlyle Group co-Chief Executive David Rubenstein said on Wednesday that inflicting losses on deposits at Cypriot banks has had a chilling effect across the world and could drive investors to pull their money from banks in other countries. A European Union bailout deal to save Cyprus from bankruptcy came with a raid on deposits over 100,000 euros in Cypriot bank accounts, an unprecedented move that has sent jitters across the single currency euro zone and beyond.
2 min read · 04 April 2013
Sensitive non-public information could be compromised if the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission fails to take additional steps to improve its internal controls, an agency watchdog has found, Reuters reported. In two separate audits completed late last month, the SEC's new inspector general, Carl Hoecker, found vulnerabilities in the SEC's information technology system. The first audit, dated March 25, examined how well the SEC maintains controls to protect sensitive information that it shares with the U.S. Financial Stability Oversight Council, or FSOC, a body of regulators that guard against systemic risks.
3 min read · 04 April 2013
Brazilian homebuilder Gafisa SA received four offers for its high-end Alphaville unit, including from Sam Zell's Equity International, a local newspaper reported on Wednesday. Gafisa owns 80 percent of Alphaville, which could be worth about 1.8 billion reais ($891 million). The sale would help Gafisa reduce its debt, which is among the highest in Brazil's construction sector.
1 min read · 03 April 2013
The sale of German energy metering firm Ista is heating up as a number of buyout houses including Axa Private Equity and BC Partners prepare to submit second round bids, Reuters wrote on Wednesday. Private equity groups Charterhouse and CVC Capital Partners kicked off the sale of Ista last year, hiring Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs to run the process.
2 min read · 03 April 2013
