Deals wrap: Doubts grow over BSkyB bid
The British government said it would take the closure of the Rupert Murdoch tabloid, News of the World, into consideration when deciding on the mogul’s bid to buy BSkyB.
Shares in Rupert Murdoch’s bid-target BSkyB slumped as the phone hacking scandal engulfing the media mogul’s empire pushed the controversial deal into uncharted waters .
Private equity firm, Carlyle Group, is in talks to buy Energy Capital Partners, a buyout company focused on power generation, electric transmission, midstream gas and other energy markets, the New York Times said.
A Visteon Corp hedge fund shareholder that will get two board seats soon has been pushing to break up the U.S. auto parts supplier, betting the company has more value in pieces than as a whole, people close to the situation said.
A booming IPO market and the lure of high returns kept China’s private equity sector humming in the first half , stoking fear of asset bubbles amid rising concerns over the quality of listed Chinese companies.
from MediaFile:
Tencent, De Wolfe among interested buyers for Myspace
De Wolfe and Murdoch in happier times (Photo: Reuters)
Chinese Internet holding company Tencent, Myspace founder Chris De Wolfe and Myspace's current management team are among the 20 odd names kicking the tires at the once might social network to see whether it's worth buying outright or partnering in some sort of spin-out with current owner News Corp.
Tencent has previously said it is interested in possible US acquisitions.
The names come up in Reuters' Special Report on 'How News Corp got lost in Myspace', a behind the scenes tale on how the focused Facebook beat the partying Myspace. (We have the story in a handy PDF format here)
In the story, we highlight some of the key problems Myspace faced, some well-known and some not often mentioned:
- It was built on a poor technology base which couldn't keep up with the fast-evolving Web 2.0 environment
Deals wrap: Ghana oil fields targeted
China’s top offshore oil company CNOOC has made a joint $5 billion bid with Ghana National Petroleum Corp for Kosmos Energy’s assets, a source close to the deal told Reuters. Kosmos is prized for its stake in Jubilee, one of the largest oil discoveries in the world in recent years.
Previously a $4 billion bid by Exxon Mobile for Kosmos failed because it was unable to secure Ghanaian government support. GNPC sources have told Reuters since last year that it had been talking to CNOOC about a possible bid. *View article
FT’s Alphaville blog breaks down the ramifications of Barclays losing its court battle with Lehman Brothers over its purchase of Lehman’s brokerage unit in bankruptcy proceedings in 2008. A loss could cost Barclays as much as $10 billion. *View article
Healthcare real-estate investment company Ventas Inc is looking to corner the U.S. senior housing market by announcing it intends to buy the real-estate assets of Atria Senior Living Group for about $1.5 billion. *View article
Iconic investor Warren Buffett, aka The Oracle of Omaha, makes $15 per second according to the WSJ’s Deal Journal. *View article
News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch has shelved the company’s ambitious plan to build a competitor to Google News, reports UK’s Media Week. *View article
DealZone Daily
Auto maker General Motors is grappling with the future of its European units Saab and Opel after one sale collapsed and the other was pulled, targeting the bulk of its 9,000 job cuts at Opel’s German factories.
Bookseller Borders UK called in the administrators yesterday, adding its name to a growing list of failed British high street retailers. Administrator MCR is hoping to sell the business, bought by Valco (the private equity arm of turnaround specialist Hilco) in July this year, as a going concern.
Lachlan Murdoch, son of News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch, sold some $27.6 million of his shares in his father’s company as he bought 50 percent of Daily Mail & General Trust’s radio operations in Australia.
For the latest deals news from Reuters, click here.
And here’s the top stories from elsewhere (some external links may require subscription):
Concerns over Dubai World’s debt dominated the news as stocks around the world tumbled and markets struggled to get to grips with the extent of the problem in the absence of solid information, says the Financial Times.
Siemens AG’s hearing aids business, valued at up to 3 billion euros, is drawing interest from private equity firms including KKR and BC Partners, Bloomberg writes.
from MediaFile:
Could Google buy Twitter? Ask Arrington, then ask Swisher
******We sprinkled updates into this blog. We're highlighting them like this.******Thanks to TechCrunch, U.S. tech reporters are about to spend another weekend working instead of playing. UPDATE: Or maybe Kara Swisher at All Things D will save them!******Two sources told proprietor Michael Arrington that Google "is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter." He wrote:***
We don't know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding.
***
Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook just a few months ago for half a billion dollars, although that was based partially on overvalued Facebook stock. Google would be paying in cash and/or publicly valued stock, which is equivalent to cash. So whatever the final acquisition value might be, it can't be compared apples-to-apples with the Facebook deal.
***
Why would Google want Twitter? We've been arguing for some time that Twitter's real value is in search. It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn't even have a horse in the game.
******Later, he updated his entry to say that another source told him talks are at an early stage and could amount to a deal to build a Google real-time search engine. Who knows how this one will shake out. Web operations like Twitter can't get popular without people starting to fit puzzle pieces together to see which company ought to buy them. That might be why The San Francisco Business Times picked up Wired and Industry Standard founder John Battelle's blog entry that Twitter would go to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for $750 million. Turns out it was an April Fool's joke.******Then Swisher at All Things D said this:***
from MediaFile:
Newspapers: These are a few of my favorite playthings
The story of rich billionaires buying troubled newspapers is one that has been told before, but never with headlines that practically nod and wink at you like this one from the Financial Times:
Tell us about it!
The story by Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson explores the ups and downs of selling troubled, publicly traded newspaper companies to impossibly rich buyers. As he says, would-be press barons might find to their dismay that the old business model is dying. That means taking over a paper could be a reputation killer, not an enhancer.
The most interesting but sad item in the story is this tidbit:
The $5.6bn Rupert Murdoch's News Corp paid in 2007 for Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal and several local papers, would now be sufficient to buy Gannett, the New York Times, McClatchy, Media General, Belo and Lee Enterprises, even at twice their current share prices.
Newspapers: We will not be undersold! There's the real headline.
from MediaFile:
It’s Midway or the highway for Redstone
Sumner Redstone is selling low -- way low. Here's The Wall Street Journal with the news:
In an effort to help resolve his debt problems, Sumner Redstone has sold his controlling stake in videogame company Midway Games Inc to a private investor.
Mr. Redstone's holding company, National Amusements Inc., is expected to announce Monday that it sold its 87% stake in Midway to investor Mark Thomas, a move that represents a significant loss on the media mogul's investment but secures a hefty tax benefit as he negotiates other asset sales.
Redstone has been discussing selling all sorts of assets, including movie theaters and his holding in slot machine company WMS Industries, the Journal said.
What next? Redstone already said he wouldn't sell any more shares in Viacom and CBS to cover his debts. But the Journal says the Redstone family is discussing securing their outstanding debt ($1.6 billion) with their remaining assets. Let's watch those stocks...
Keep an eye on
- It's Reuters Media Summit week in New York City, when we get a bunch of executives in a room and get them to tell us about how they're negotiating the downturn. There will even be TV. (Reuters)
- Call it dumb luck. We knew USA Today was going to cut 20 jobs in its newsroom, but one of our reporters on holiday shopping coverage found a business-side person at Gannett's and the nation's biggest paper who said there are going to be cuts on her side too. A Gannett spokeswoman confirmed that this will happen, but a spokeswoman for the paper wasn't available to tell us how many will go.
- Nearly everyone has written about Michael Wolff's new Rupert Murdoch book. Here's a quick link rundown. Janet Maslin's review in The New York Times is quite interesting. For the others, there's us, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, MarketWatch, The Independent and The Age.
