Virgin Atlantic led consortium to acquire Flybe Group. (FS)
Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group, and Cyrus Capital made an offer for Flybe Group equity at £2.2m ($2.8m).
Cyrus, Stobart Group and Virgin Atlantic have committed to make available a £20m ($26m) bridge loan facility to support Flybe's ongoing working capital and operational requirements. Following completion of the Acquisition, Cyrus, Stobart Group and Virgin Atlantic are intending to provide up to £80m ($103m) of further funding to the Combined Group to invest in its business and support its growth, as well as a contribution of Stobart Air.
"The Board of Stobart Group believes that bringing Stobart Air together with Flybe and partnering with Virgin Atlantic and Cyrus Capital is the best way for us to play an active role in UK regional flying. The combined entity will be a powerful combination with sufficient scale to compete effectively in the UK and European airline markets.It will allow us to continue to work with Flybe and provides an excellent opportunity to continue to grow passenger numbers at London Southend Airport." Warwick Brady, Stobart Group CEO.
Flybe was advised by Evercore and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. Stobart was advised by Barclays and Hill Dickinson. Cyrus was advised by Morgan Lewis & Bockius. Virgin was advised by Rothschild & Co, Herbert Smith Freehills, and FTI Consulting.
Auction for Orsted's assets worth up to €2.5bn is entering its final stage. (FS)
The Danish power distribution and residential customer businesses are well-run and have a high level of customer satisfaction. However, they are not a sales channel supporting the company’s long-term international growth in renewables.
Orsted's Board of Directors has therefore decided to initiate an auction to assess the market interest in acquiring Orsted's above business. The cut-off price to reach the second round of the process was €2.5bn ($2.8bn).
Enel, SEAS-NVE, ATP, OMERS, PKA, and CDPQ showed interest and are lining up final bids. Final bids are expected around the second half of February. Orsted aims to pick a buyer by the end of June.
Orsted is being advised by Danske Bank.
Israel’s state-owned Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and businessman Avihai Stolero have offered to buy unmanned aerial vehicle maker Aeronautics for $232m.
The company would become private and its shares will be delisted from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
EWE will offer investors a minority stake, which would value the company at up to €6.2bn.
German regional utility company EWE will offer investors a minority stake next month in a deal that could value the whole group at up to €6.2bn ($7.2bn).
EWE, which also has a telecoms business, has said it wants to find a new strategic partner in 2019 to raise fresh funds for investments, including building glass-fiber networks with Deutsche Telekom.
Potential buyers include a group made up of Macquarie, Allianz, OMERS, IFM and Dutch pension fund PGGM.
Elior is awaiting bids for its Areas business at an expected valuation of up to €2bn. (FS)
France’s Elior wants bids for its Areas business, which focuses on railways and motorway catering, to be submitted by the end of January.
Elior, which is Europe’s third-largest catering group, hopes to raise €1.5bn to €2bn ($2.3bn) from the sale of Areas, whose €1.8bn ($2.1bn) 2017-18 revenue accounted for nearly a third of its sales.
Around 10 private equity funds - including Carlyle, KKR, Lone Star and Blackstone - are considering making a bid.
Medco Energi considers a £343m bid for Ophir Energy.
Indonesian oil and gas group is considering an offer of £343m for London-listed Ophir Energy. While no offer had yet been confirmed, the Indonesian group had a possible bid in mind at 49GBp per share.
The tie-up would make Medco, which has been expanding its asset base, the seventh largest upstream producer in south-east Asia outside of national oil companies, ahead of the likes of Hess and BP.
Amazon acquired CloudEndure for $250m.
Amazon has purchased Israeli cloud computing company CloudEndure, with the Globes business publication reporting a price of $250m.
Founded in 2012, the company develops business continuity software designed to prevent data loss and network downtime and to recover information in the event of an IT disaster.
CloudEndure will be incorporated into Amazon Web Services.
Lottoland is ready to offer up to €76m for Tipp24.
Gambling company Lottoland said it was ready to offer up to €76m ($88m) for German lottery business Tipp24 in a move which could thwart the restructuring plans of Tipp24’s owner Zeal Network.
Lottoland CEO Nigel Birrell said the proposed Lotto24 deal would be “value destructive” and there was a “good chance” it would be rejected by shareholders.
Alstom-Siemens rail merger rests on the EU's approach to Chinese competition.
Siemens and Alstom, two of the EU’s most important engineering names, are planning to combine their rail operations.
Advocates of the deal, such as the French finance minister, say such a behemoth is needed for one main reason: the companies would otherwise eventually be outmuscled in their own market by Beijing-backed CRRC, the world’s largest train maker.
EU competition commissioner has sent a so-called charge sheet related to the companies’ plans, concluding that Chinese suppliers are unlikely to compete in Europe in the foreseeable future.
Ms. Vestager has not accepted the argument that Chinese companies will soon be selling trains or signalling systems in Europe. As a result, the agreement of the merger is unsure.
Geely Group denied selling its stake in Daimler.
China’s Geely Group said it has not sold any shares in Daimler, denying a Bloomberg report that the Chinese firm had slashed its 9.7% stake in the German carmaker by more than half.
Bloomberg reported that Chinese billionaire Li Shufu’s Geely had sold a 5.4% stake. The report comes as Morgan Stanley disclosed in a filing that it had increased its Daimler stake to 5.4% from 0.3%.
According to Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley is holding the shares on behalf of others.
