Barclays Investment Bank poaches Goldman Sachs man Phil Shelley February 26, 2015 Barclays has poached Phil Shelley from Goldman Sachs to work in its investment arm in a senior UK banking role. In his job as managing director at Goldman, Shelley worked on IPOs last year including Saga and Virgin Active. He was also previously a joint-head of corporate broking at UBS. However, it is thought his [...]
Political fallout and euro exit still a risk even if bailout’s extended February 23, 2015 A deal to extend Greece’s bailout programme could mark only a brief pause in the country’s latest saga. “If it was left with no choice but to accept austerity conditions similar to those that were in place before the election, it might feel that it had to put this to a referendum,” commented Jennifer McKeown [...]
Shrove Tuesday 2015: MPs get battered by journalists in annual pancake charity race February 17, 2015 Flipping MPs is sadly not a new thing, as followers of the expenses saga will remember. Yesterday, a group of MPs were flipping pancakes, not mortgages, taking part an annual charity race against Westminster journalists. A cross-party selection of MPs took on a media team led by Sky’s Sophy Ridge, who crossed the line first. [...]
AstraZeneca loses its US patent rights for asthma drug Pulmicort Respules February 16, 2015 AstraZeneca is considering an appeal against a US court ruling that found its patent for asthma treatment Pulmicort Respules is invalid in America. The British pharmaceutical giant said it “strongly disagrees” with the decision and is considering its options. In a statement yesterday, Paul Hudson, president of AstraZeneca US, said: “AstraZeneca has full confidence [...]
King Digital share prices soars as Candy Crush Saga duo set to reap £41m reward in March February 15, 2015 The bosses of hit smartphone game group King Digital are set to receive a £41.5m windfall next month after the studio behind Candy Crush Saga announced a special dividend along with record results last week. For his 9.7 per cent stake co-founder and chief executive Riccardo Zacconi will pocket £19m of the £195m dividend being [...]
King Digital investor and Index Ventures partner Ben Holmes is hunting for tech unicorns February 8, 2015 Ben Holmes first heard about King Digital Entertainment, the company behind three of the global top-grossing iPhone apps, including Candy Crush Saga, over a decade ago. At that time in 2004 Holmes, a partner at the new London offices of Index Ventures, represented one of the few venture capital firms still investing in consumer-facing internet [...]
New issues market gets off to a slow start – Editor’s Letter February 4, 2015 After a cracking 2014 in London’s new issues market, this year was always going to be tricky, with expectations higher than usual. At the beginning of the year many bankers envisaged a pretty strong list of companies coming to the market in the early part of the year before petering out around May, because of [...]
HSS tool hire slumps as debut is a damp squib February 4, 2015 TOOL hire firm HSS’s shares slid on conditional trading yesterday, in a disappointing launch for the newly-public stock. Its shares floated at 210p, coming in at the bottom of the price range set by the firm and its advisers. But they quickly started falling, moving as low as 198.25p – a fall of 5.6 per cent [...]
Saga share price boosted by a £26m acquisition of Bennetts motorbike insurer January 28, 2015 Shares in insurance group Saga shot up by 10.8 per cent yesterday after the firm announced it had bought motorbike insurer Bennetts for £26.26m. Saga, which specialises in cover for the over-50s, said the deal was in line with its strategy to expand its offering via broker services. Bennetts, which was previously owned by BGL [...]
TheTrainline.com’s new KKR deal postpones debut for IPOs – Inside Track January 22, 2015 KKR’s decision to buy up TheTrainline.com robs the financial markets in London of their first opportunity to test the new issues market in 2015. Last year was a mixed one for flotations, with London seeing more business than since the financial crash. But there were still doubts about the market’s robustness. Though new issues as [...]