EMEA
Elliott proposes 'superior' plan for Portuguese utility EDP. (Financial Sponsors)
Ant Financials acquired currency exchange WorldFirst.
Mitsubishi Corporation acquired a 20% stake in OVO Energy.
Bridgepoint looks for selling the MotoGP to itself.
Nestle puts its meat business up for sale.
Suitors 'lining up' to buy Nestle Skin Health.
Rovio considers the sale of control over Hatch unit.
Salmar considers $171m bid for Iceland's Arnarlax.
AMERICAS
SunPower seeking a partner for its solar panel making business.
Goldman considers buying a boutique. (FS)
Levi’s founder family set to raise up to $2.5bn from a potential IPO. (FS)
APAC
Vivendi will finalize the purchase of 20% initial stake in TV arm of Indonesian MNC.
Sequoia-backed Circles.Life plan to invest over $250m in Asian regional expansion. (FS)
Khazahan Nasional to unveil new plan to deliver more cash to the Malaysian government. (FS)
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EMEA
Elliott proposes 'superior' plan for Portuguese utility EDP.
Activist investor Elliott said it had proposed a “superior” alternative to shareholders in utility EDP-Energias de Portugal than a bid from China Three Gorges, including raising €7.6bn from asset sales.
State-owned CTG, which is already EDP’s largest shareholder with a 23% stake, launched a €9bn ($10bn) bid for Portugal’s biggest company in May last year.
“Over the course of several months, we have devoted considerable time and resources to better understanding the challenges and opportunities facing EDP. Our extensive research convinced us that EDP is an attractive company with substantial unrealized potential.” Elliott said.
Danish hearing aid maker Widex expects its merger with Germany’s Sivantos to complete next month after getting European approval, creating the third-largest player in the industry.
The companies plan to invest more in digital devices as a combined group and to step up their challenge on market leaders Sonova and William Demant.
Sivantos, formerly known as Siemens Audiology, and Denmark’s Widex said in May that they had agreed to form a company worth more than €7bn ($8.3bn), including €3bn in debt.
Sivantos is advised by Aon Securities, Freshfields, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Plesner. Widex is advised by Deloitte, Boston Consulting Group, JP Morgan, Latham & Watkins, Allen & Overy, and Kromann Reumert. EQT Debt providers are Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan.
Ant Financials acquired currency exchange WorldFirst.
Ant Financial acquired UK-based currency exchange WorldFirst. Financial terms were not disclosed.
WorldFirst CEO Jonathan Quin said in a letter sent out to clients that the company “will continue to operate as a UK-headquartered and regulated business with global operations” while becoming a wholly-owned division of Ant Financial.
Media reports first surfaced in December that Ant Financial was in talks to purchase WorldFirst. The Financial Times said earlier this month a potential deal would be valued at $700m.
Mitsubishi Corporation acquired a 20% stake in OVO Energy.
Mitsubishi made a strategic investment in OVO Energy and acquired a 20% stake. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OVO will use the proceeds of Mitsubishi Corporation’s strategic investment to expand into new markets across Europe and the Asia Pacific and accelerate the development of its intelligent energy technologies unit, Kaluza. This new division within the OVO portfolio develops and manages software and hardware to support the integration of electric vehicles and dynamic battery storage onto the grid.
“OVO and Mitsubishi Corporation share the same vision for the future of energy: secure, distributed and consumer-centric, with affordable clean energy for everyone. We’re delighted to be working with an exceptional global partner which is perfectly placed to help us accelerate our international expansion and technology rollout.” Stephen Fitzpatrick, OVO Energy CEO.
Bridgepoint looks for selling the MotoGP to itself.
London-based private equity group Bridgepoint is in talks with its investors to shift its stake in a company it has held for more than a decade from one fund to another, bypassing a sale to rivals.
A transfer of Dorna, a Spanish sports management company that has the exclusive rights to promote and manage MotoGP and the Superbike World Championship, is not guaranteed and talks are continuing. It comes after Bridgepoint appointed bankers at Lazard late last year to explore a potential sale, which led some of the largest private equity groups, including CVC, Eurazeo, Blackstone, General Atlantic, and KKR, to express interest in the asset.
“Bridgepoint thinks they have a great asset and they want to keep it,” said an investor in the fund. Dorna, which manages 59 events, featuring 187 races in 17 countries, has posted double-digit growth in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization year on year, according to a person familiar with its finances.
Nestle puts its meat business up for sale.
Nestle SA put its ailing Herta lunch-meat business up for sale as Chief Executive Officer Mark Schneider tries to spur sales growth at the world’s largest food company through acquisitions and divestments.
The Swiss company’s shares rose as much as 3.7% to a record as it forecast improved sales and said that it expects to cede control of its dermatology unit by the middle of this year. After 14bn francs ($14bn) of deals in 2018, there’s no sign Schneider will stop nipping and tucking in his third year on the job.
Suitors 'lining up' to buy Nestle Skin Health.
The process to sell Nestle’s skin health division is off to a good start, with a strong interest in the business following an overhaul, the chief executive Mark Schneider said.
“We’ve seen very, very strong interest in this process, and literally people lining up around the block to be part of this process,” he added.
First-round bids for the unit, which is expected to fetch around 7bn Swiss francs ($7bn), are due on 6 March. Nestle declined to comment on the deadline.
Rovio considers the sale of control over Hatch unit.
Rovio Entertainment, the maker of the Angry Birds mobile games, fell after it reported declining profitability, and warned investors of lower profits for the first half of the year.
The company is prepared to cede control of subsidiary Hatch Entertainment, the cloud-based gaming service it currently owns 80% of, to less than 50%. Without Hatch, the Finnish company’s profitability would improve to as much as 14% this year.
Salmar considers $171m bid for Iceland's Arnarlax.
Oslo-listed fish farmer Salmar has raised its stake in Iceland’s largest salmon producer, Arnarlax, to 54% from about 42% and plans to bid for the rest of the company.
The bid of 55 Norwegian crowns per share values unlisted Arnarlax at around 1.5bn Norwegian crowns ($171m), according to a Reuters calculation.
“The chairman of the board of Arnarlax AS, Kjartan Olafsson, has confirmed that he wishes to continue as an owner in Arnarlax AS and will as such not sell shares in response to the offer,” Salmar said.
Salmar also reported fourth-quarter operating earnings in line with forecasts and set a higher-than-expected full-year 2018 dividend.
AMERICAS
SunPower seeking a partner for its solar panel making business.
SunPower is seeking a strategic partner for its solar panel manufacturing business, an arrangement that could allow it to expand the US factory it acquired last year, Chief Executive Tom Werner said.
A partnership could involve the sale of a minority stake in the manufacturing business or a customer investment that would allow preferential access to its products, among other options, Werner said.
The investment would allow SunPower to accelerate deployment of its next-generation solar technology and could allow it to do more at the Hillsboro, Oregon factory that it acquired last year as it sought to stem the impact of Trump administration tariffs on foreign-made panels.
Goldman considers buying a boutique. (FS)
Goldman Sachs is rumored to consider buying a boutique investment bank catering to midsize corporations to ramp up Goldman’s share of mid-market deal-flow. William Blair and Harris Williams were rumored to be potential targets.
Levi’s founder family set to raise up to $2.5bn from a potential IPO. (FS)
Levi's is going to filed for an initial public offering. The firm is said to be valued at $5bn, according to CNBC, giving t he Haas family, which traces its lineage to company founder Levi Strauss and owns almost 59% of the San Francisco-based apparel maker, a combined net worth of at least $2.5bn.
APAC
Vivendi will finalize the purchase of 20% initial stake in TV arm of Indonesian MNC.
French media conglomerate Vivendi will finalize the purchase of an initial 20% stake in the television subscription arm of Indonesia’s Media Nusantara Citra (MNC) in March, a senior MNC executive said.
David Fernando Audy, president director of MNC, also told reporters that Vivendi planned to eventually buy a 50% stake in PT MNC Vision Networks worth up to $500m. The television arm also has plans for an initial public offering this year, he said. MNC is the holding company of Indonesian media mogul, Harry Tanoesoedibjo.
Sequoia-backed Circles.Life plan to invest over $250m in Asian regional expansion. (FS)
Sequoia-backed Singaporean mobile services provider Circles.Life said it plans to invest more than $250m to roll out services in over five countries, including Taiwan and Australia, in the next 18 months.
Singapore’s telecom market is set for a shakeup this year as a new player TPG Telecom is preparing to launch services. Last year, conglomerate Keppel and Singapore Press Holdings offered to buy majority control of mobile operator M1.
The Circles.Life also said that it closed a series-C funding round that was led by Sequoia but declined to say how much it raised or its valuation.
Khazahan Nasional to unveil new plan to deliver more cash to the Malaysian government. (FS)
Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional will unveil a plan this month to deliver more cash to the government by pruning its stakes in non-strategic assets and dialing back its offshore presence in spots such as London.
This underlines the urgent need for Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to raise money for government coffers, depleted by a fiscal deficit and a massive debt from a multi-billion dollar scandal at state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Under the new strategy, set to be announced at Khazanah’s annual review on Feb. 28, the $39bn fund will look to trim stakes in some companies identified as non-strategic to 15-25% - near the typical holding levels of the pension fund.
Khazanah is also looking to reduce its physical presence in overseas locations such as London, Mumbai and Silicon Valley. It is considering offloading some of its foreign properties and tech investments too.
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