Bryce is a sporadic Alphaville contributor and has been the FT’s UK equities reporter since 2008. Before that he wrote about UK equities at Morningstar. Before that he wrote about UK equities at The Times. Before that he wrote about UK equities at Bloomberg. Before that he wrote about UK equities at AFX News. Before that he did not write about UK equities.
Swedish oil company Lundin Petroleum declined to comment on rumours that it has been in talks to sell a significant equity stake to China Petrochemicals Corporation. Read more
So here’s the bad news.
WHAT’S NEW
RNS, the newswire used by most U.K. companies to distribute time-sensitive press releases, will require anyone wishing to receive announcements in real-time must register before Feb. 1, 2013. Anyone who fails to register will receive the press announcements after a 60-minute delay. There is no cost at this time to register.
So the LSE had a technical b0rk this morning, which clogged the Regulatory News Service out for more than 90 minutes. The silo of corporate news was finally released at 8:37am.
No harm done though, right? Market integrity intact? Possibly not. Read more
Does US-listed Pacific Drilling look like a credible takeover target? We think it probably does, 0n balance, and we’d very much like to find out more. Read more
Paging Dr Mike Lynch. Your patient seems to be suffering some nasty post-op complications.
From Hewlett-Packard’s fourth-quarter results:
Fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2012 results include a non-cash goodwill and intangible asset impairment charge of $8.8 billion relating to the Autonomy business within the Software segment.
It’s 2:45am in Vancouver. Do you know where your investor relations department is?
Here’s this morning’s Daily Mail. Read more
Big news in RAW sewage this Saturday evening.
PARIS | Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:33pm BST (Reuters) – Veolia Environnement and Suez Environnement said on Saturday they were not working on a merger after Le Monde newspaper reported the two companies had held talks that fell apart over antitrust concerns. Read more
Those who argue for a further relaxation of the LSE’s listing rules may want to note the following announcement:
Rangers, the Scottish football club, today announces its intention to seek Admission to the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. Read more
The exact time of death can be recorded as 1:01pm BST. But, really, the pulse was lost long ago.
BAE Systems and EADS announced that they have decided to terminate their discussions. So should we blame another breakdown in eurozone relations? Or maybe, just maybe, BEADS wasn’t a merger worth saving. Read more
Pascal Soriot doesn’t start as AstraZeneca’s new CEO until Monday, yet everyone seems to know what he should do first: go shopping.
The problems soon to be faced by the former Genentech CEO are well known. AstraZeneca is heading towards the steepest of patent cliffs and has so far failed to find anything in the R&D labs that might cushion its fall. Drugs losing US patent protection by 2015 account for a more than a fifth of its sales, rising to nearly a third of sales by 2019. Recent launches of diabetes and heart disease pills have fallen short and what’s in the late-stage pipeline (arthritis, constipation and gout, since you ask) is considered quite likely to fail. Read more
It’s been a lively few weeks for Monster Worldwide, the recruitment website.
For a company that’s been for sale since February, that’s quite a move. BofA Merrill Lynch and Stone Key Partners have been courting buyers for the past six months and final-round bids went in this week, according to Dealreporter (subscription required). Read more
Well, that was silly.
Remember Friday afternoon RAW?  Well, this is most definitely Friday afternoon RAW. Please read the disclaimer carefully.
Here’s something odd.
Related links:
Lynch mobbed – FT Alphaville
Revisiting Autonomy’s Iron Mountain deal – FT Alphaville Read more
“Live by the sword, die by the sword” does not translate into Kurdish, it seems.
Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd. (AIM: GKP) Read more
Sensational “news” via the Daily Express, which for the avoidance of doubt is a British national newspaper.
According to the Evening Standard:
Lloyds Banking Group is understood to have received a multi-billion-pound takeover approach for Scottish Widows, its life assurance, pensions and savings business. Read more
We don’t know. That’s the first thing to make clear.
In the hotel bars of Mayfair, not knowing what’s happening with PPR would appear to put us in the minority. Every quiet conversation of late has revolved around the Paris-based company, which owns Gucci Group along with a few retail and sportswear businesses that no-one seems to value much. Read more
Behold, a bid approach! For International Power! From GDF Suez, its 70 per cent shareholder! This must come as a total surprise!
Except perhaps to readers of the FT (January 11) Read more
It always warms the heart to see a failed executive give something back.
Not to shareholders, obviously. Shareholders are bitter types who won’t invite you to champagne receptions in White Cube. Better, instead, to aim your largesse at people largely unaffected by your failure. Read more
“Do not ignore this chart,” shouts Murray Gunn, Head of Divination and Rune Casting at HSBC, in his daily Short Cycle report. So here we are, pointedly not ignoring it.
“Thank you for depositing a $3bn merger rumour. An RNS will be credited to our investors in 24 hours.”
As the FT wrote on Thursday morning … Read more
One cannot fault the Chinese walls at Merrill Lynch, joint corporate broker to Invensys.
We have upgraded Invensys to a Buy, with a price target of 285p. While pressure on Controls will potentially continue in the short term and H2 Rail margins could be at risk, we think the valuation is now more than discounting the earnings risk. Read more
Just as correlation does not imply causation, this post should not imply usefulness. Consider it a bit of light frippery at the end of a rather challenging week for symmetrical trading.
Here’s how it works. We’ve drawn the graphs of a few securities into Google Correlate, which finds search terms whose popularity matches the given trend over time. It is, in short, an automatic logical fallacy generator. Read more
Spoof Wars continues.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has obtained an interim High Court injunction preventing a number of companies and individuals from manipulating the market in UK-listed shares. The injunction also freezes the assets of the companies. Read more
Games of spoof can be very expensive. Just ask Mike Ashley, who reportedly lost £200,000 when playing against his advisors at Merrill Lynch. Or ask Peter Beck, the Canadian day-trading evangelist who has lost £8m to the FSA.
These are, of course, different types of spoof. While Mr Ashley used the drinking game to settle a legal bill, Mr Beck’s SwiftTrade equities trading network was — in the FSA’s judgement — spoofing the market: Read more
How do you make insurance interesting?
Admiral Group, the FTSE 100 motor insurer, chose to theme its interim results this week around the work of spaghetti western director Sergio Leone. Read more
