| CATEGORY: PRESS ROUND-UP SHORT SECTOR: FOOD PRODUCERS |
Sunday newspaper round-up: Premier Foods, BT, EMI |
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Sun 03 Dec 2006
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LONDON (SHARECAST) - The chief executive of Premier Foods, Robert Schofield, is believed to have made a takeover approach to merge the firm with rival RHM, a move that would combine some of Britain’s biggest brands and create a £2bn food producer, writes the Sunday Times.
Premier Foods already owns brands such as Branston Pickle and Angel Delight while RHM is best known for Hovis, Bisto and Mr Kipling.
Freeport, the troubled European factory outlet developer, is preparing to enter talks with Carlyle, the US buyout group, about a 435p-a-share takeover offer, which would value the company at £165m.
It is understood the Freeport board are in principle prepared to recommend a takeover offer pitched at that level, but no firm agreement with Carlyle has yet been reached because the US group has still to complete its due diligence, the Sunday Times writes.
Permira is preparing to table a formal £2.5bn offer to acquire Britain’s music giant EMI. The private-equity group could make its move as early as this week. The offer could be pitched at 310p, compared with Friday’s closing price of 290p, but even at this level it will not receive the recommendation of the EMI board, says the Sunday Times.
BT is poised to clinch a deal with Hollywood's Warner Brothers that will allow British consumers to access the studio's vast catalogue of films and television shows through internet downloads to their TV sets.
The agreement, which could be announced as early as tomorrow, would be BT's biggest content deal yet and would form the cornerstone of a new line-up of products that the group will offer on its new combined television and broadband service, writes the Sunday Telegraph.
Thousands of UK shoppers are finding a novel way to exploit the weakening dollar by ordering goods from US websites and having them shipped over here.
According to figures obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, online purchases by UK shoppers from two of the US's biggest department stores have increased by 150% over the last year. One of the US's largest sports retailers has also seen online orders for trainers from UK shoppers rise by over 30% on last year, writes the Telegraph.
UTV, the television and radio broadcaster, is expected to be part of a line-up of partners in a bid fronted by Channel 4 to operate the most sophisticated digital radio service yet created in Britain.
As well as UTV, which owns TalkSPORT, Channel 4 is thought to have recruited Chrysalis Radio, the broadcaster of the Heart, Galaxy and LBC networks, and CanWest, the Canadian media giant, to operate a new digital radio platform advertised by Ofcom, the media regulator, on Friday, reports the Telegraph.
SABMiller, the £16bn London-listed brewer, is poised to make a series of acquisitions in China that will help cement its status as the country's biggest beer-seller.
The Anglo-South African group, which has Miller Genuine Draught and Pilsner Urquell among its key brands, is close to signing deals to acquire three breweries in the north of China. The agreements, thought to be worth £50m, will add to the production capacity of China Resources Snow Breweries (CRSB), the Chinese company in which SABMiller owns a 49% stake.
Two of Britain's richest entrepreneurs have drawn up plans to float one of the world's most ambitious wind generation companies on London's junior Aim market.
Gordon Crawford, the computer tycoon, and Robert Adair, the chairman of oil explorer Melrose Resources, between them own a majority stake in Honiton Energy, China's fastest-growing foreign alternative energy provider, reports the Telegraph.
Some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical companies, including FTSE 100 giant GlaxoSmithKline, have failed to sign a formal agreement that would ensure HIV and Aids patients in poor nations receive vital drugs, according to the Independent.
Self-storage group Safestore is considering becoming a real estate investment trust after its planned £700m flotation early next year. The company, taken private three years ago by buyout firm Bridgepoint, has appointed Merrill Lynch and Citigroup to advise it on a sale or float, reports the Independent.
Balfour Beatty is under threat of being suspended from bidding for major rail infrastructure work in the UK after causing chaos by over-running engineering works.
The engineering and construction group has been told by Network Rail, the national rail infrastructure owner, that if it is responsible for another similar incident it faces 'very severe consequences', according to the Observer.
Leading defence companies are warning the government that the whole industry and the national interest are at risk if a dispute with Saudi Arabia over a fraud investigation into arms deals with BAE is not resolved amicably.
The Defence Industry Council is writing to Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling to warn that business worth several billion pounds and tens of thousands of jobs could be jeopardised if the matter is not settled soon, the Observer reports.
The dollar’s fall, which accelerated last week, will further boost the City of London in its battle with New York for supremacy in the financial markets. London is already the biggest market for foreign exchange, foreign equities, international insurance and international bank lending. This year it has handled a third more market listings than New York, $40bn versus $30bn, writes the Sunday Times.
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