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Stock Spirits buys Italian grappa producer Distillerie Franciacorta for €26.5m

Vodka manufacturer Stock Spirits has snapped up Italian grappa giant Distillerie Franciacorta in a deal worth €26.5m (£23.2m), the company said today.

The London-listed drinks firm will take over Distillerie Franciacorta’s spirits and liqueurs business for €23.5m and pay a further €3m for land, with plans to build a new production facility.

Stock Spirits, which operates largely in the eastern European market, will also acquire the Italian company’s wine brands.

The Lombardy-based spirits company Distillerie Franciacorta specialises in grappa, which is Italy’s fourth largest spirits category, as well as the region’s sparkling wine.

Shares in Stock Spirits were up almost 2.5 per cent this morning.

Stock Spirits chief executive Mirek Stachowicz said: “This is our first step in pursuing in-market consolidation opportunities in Italy, and Distillerie Franciacorta will strengthen our position in what is a fragmented but highly attractive market for us.

“It should also be seen as a clear reflection of our willingness to undertake value-creating mergers and acquisitions as part of our four-pillar growth strategy.”

The move comes just days after a major Stock Spirits shareholder launched an attack on the company’s board over low returns.

Portuguese investor Luis Amaral, whose firm Western Gate holds a 10 per cent stake in the business, called on fellow shareholders to oust chairman David Maloney and senior director John Nicolson.

Western Gate also criticised the board’s failure to offer a clear growth strategy and carry out acquisitions, and the investment firm today issued a further statement insisting the takeover is “immaterial to the company’s balance sheet”.

“This simply does not go far enough and is another example of Stock Spirits only acting under pressure from shareholders,” it said.

But Stock Spirits rebutted the claim. “This is an opportunity that we have been looking at for more than a year now, and discussions have taken place over many months,” the company said.

“It has nothing to do with shareholder pressure and everything to do with being a truly compelling opportunity that has clear and attractive synergies with our existing Italian operations.”

Read more – www.cityam.com

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Time’s up: Meet the startups fighting sexual harassment

It’s been more than a year since the #metoo movement swept across the globe, revealing the extent to which sexual harassment has infiltrated virtually every industry, as women and men have come forward to share their stories.

Despite the global outcry—and the naming and shaming of some of the culprits, which has resulted in public scandals and resignations reaching the very top of billion-dollar corporations—there is still little evidence of systemic change from companies themselves. In most cases, it appears that, for now, the movement has had consequences for individuals, rather than altering the corporate culture that has made sexual harassment permissible—or at least allowed some employees to get away with it.

When trying to understand just how prevalent this behavior is in the workplace, numbers help. According to a 2017 BBC survey, more than half of women and a fifth of men have been subjected to workplace sexual harassment in the UK. Across the pond, statistics from Statista reveal that 42% of women and 11% of men have experienced it. However, it is also crucial to note that the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission estimates that around 75% of all workplace harassment goes unreported, so as bad as these figures appear, the reality is probably much worse.

Most businesses have a set of human resources rules to deal with not only these issues, but all forms of discrimination, alongside the more mundane tasks of day-to-day working life. However, normalized HR practices to tackle sexual harassment are more often than not based on antiquated laws that are in need of an update to deal with the problems that appear in the modern workplace as society evolves.

As with any industry nowadays, when there’s a need for disruption, a good place to turn for innovative solutions is the startup world. Over the past couple of years, a rash of new companies have cropped up to not only help those who have been affected by sexual harassment, but also to try to prevent it in the first place.

Read More – www.pitchbook.com

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Spotify buys podcast firms Gimlet and Anchor

Spotify has bought two podcast firms and plans to spend up to $500m (£385m) on further acquisitions in an attempt to move beyond its music streaming roots for new growth.

The Swedish company has acquired Gimlet, the firm behind a string of popular podcasts including Homecoming, which was adapted into an Amazon TV series starring Julia Roberts.

It has also acquired Anchor, a platform that allows individuals and companies to create, publish and monetise podcasts. No price was disclosed for either deal, but Gimlet reportedly cost Spotify $230m.

Daniel Ek, the founder and chief executive of Spotify, said his company needed to break into the small, but fast-growing podcasting market in order to tap revenue streams beyond its core music service.

“We believe it is a safe assumption that, over time, more than 20% of all Spotify listening will be non-music content,” he said in a blog post. “This means the potential to grow much faster with more original programming.

“Our core business is performing very well. But as we expand deeper into audio, especially with original content, we will scale our entire business.”

News of the deals came as Spotify revealed its first ever quarterly profit. Operating profit for the final three months of 2018 was €94m (£82m), but it expects to slip back into the red this year. The company said its loss guidance for 2019 had increased from €200m to €360m, despite paid subscriber numbers being projected to rise from 117 million to 127 million.

 

Read More – www.theguardian.com

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Satirical News Website The Daily Mash Sold for £1.2m

The satirical news website the Daily Mash, which provided the inspiration for the Nish Kumar BBC comedy show The Mash Report, has been sold for £1.2m.

The site is known for spoof headlines such as “It wasn’t worth it, says 103-year-old vegetarian”, “Only people who still want Brexit are inexplicably angry posh couple with two labradors”, and “Man worried he’s the last of his friends to have an article in Guardian”.

Its co-founders Paul Stokes and Neil Rafferty, former national newspaper reporters, are in line for a payday after they agreed to sell the site’s parent company, Mashed Productions, to Digitalbox, a media company in Bath.

The Daily Mash has a loyal following built up during 12 years of publishing. Despite the site’s relatively high profile, its parent company recorded revenues of £396,000 and a profit before tax of £135,000 in the last financial year, showing the tight budgets in ad-supported online publishing.

The site, which has two full-time members of staff and relies on a pool of freelance writers, will become part of Digitalbox, which also owns the website Entertainment Daily. The combined business is intending to list on the Aim stock market next month and then acquire other digital publishers.

In a decidedly un-Daily Mash statement to the stock market, the new parent company said the site was “capable of consistently generating high-quality, original humour content which is extremely hard to replicate” and “has increasingly turned its attention to satirising social tribes and trends to produce highly viral content of a more timeless nature that has a much broader and longer appeal than daily news”.

The Daily Mash attracted 1.8 million visitors a month, the vast majority of them in the UK and most of them coming from social media referrals from the likes of Facebook.

Rafferty, the Daily Mash’s editor-in-chief, said: “This is a great opportunity for the Mash to build on what we have created so far. My co-founder, Paul Stokes, did an incredible job building a profitable business from the ground up.”

The site has occasionally spread confusion, notably when Sky News inadvertently read out a spoof Daily Mash headline claiming the former London mayor Ken Livingstone had a pet newt called Adolf, at the height of claims about antisemitism in the Labour party.

Read More – www.theguardian.com

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Liberty London department store could be sold for £350m

The department store Liberty London has been put on the market with a potential £350m price tag.

The retail landmark, which was founded by Arthur Lasenby Liberty in 1875 with a £2,000 loan from his future father-in-law, has grown to become an international brand that sells its tana lawn fabrics and luxury leather goods around the world.

The private equity firm BlueGem bought Liberty for £32m in 2010 and refinanced it in 2014, reducing its stake to about 40% and allowing some investors to take cash out but nearly all to reinvest in buying the department store for £165m.

It is understood BlueGem is looking to offload its stake. It is unclear if other investors are willing to sell.

Group sales reached £133m in the year to February 2018, up 8% year on year, while pretax profits more than tripled to nearly £7m. About 60% of the store’s profits come from selling own-label merchandise.

The Tudor-revival store on Great Marlborough Street in central London opened in 1924 and has been extensively renovated by its current owners as a home for designer fashion as well as beauty, accessories, homewares and haberdashery.

The company was once listed on the London Stock Exchange but controlled by property company MWB Group. It lost money for years, making sales of about £70m and losses of £4.5m in 2009.

BlueGem had hoped to bring Liberty back to the stock market last year, but has now hired UBS to seek a private buyer, according to Sky News, which first reported the potential sale.

The retailer is on the market during a period of great upheaval for department stores, which face competition from online shopping and a squeeze on consumer spending.

House of Fraser went into administration last summer and was bought out by Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct group. He also has his eye on Debenhams, which is struggling for survival after several years of poor trading and rising costs.

Read More – www.theguardian.com

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Thoma Bravo Continues Frenetic Year With $3.7B Mortgage Deal

Thoma Bravo has wasted no time getting a jump on 2019.

The tech-focused buyout juggernaut completed its $950 million purchase of application security business Veracode from Broadcom on the first day of the year. Ten days later, Thoma Bravo finalized its acquisition of cybersecurity business Imperva for roughly $2.1 billion. And at the end of the month, the firm closed its 13th flagship fund on $12.6 billion, its biggest vehicle ever, topping a predecessor that brought in $7.6 billion in 2016 and joining an elite group of private equity firms that have raised $10 billion or more for buyout funds this decade.

Now, in its latest move, the Chicago-based investor has agreed to take mortgage software maker Ellie Mae private in a deal worth some $3.7 billion. Thoma Bravo will pay $99 per share in cash for the company, marking a 47% premium to its average closing share price over the 30 days ended February 1 and a roughly 21% premium to its Monday close. Based in Pleasanton, CA, Ellie Mae will now have a 35-day go-shop period to seek a better deal; otherwise, the buyout is expected to close in 2Q or 3Q.

Founded in 1997, Ellie Mae is the creator of a cloud-based platform used by banks, credit unions and mortgage companies to originate loans, with a client list that includes powerful US government-backed entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (Despite its similar name, Ellie Mae has no direct link to either company or to the government). Over the past eight years, the company has been on an incredible upward trajectory, driven by low interest rates and the recovery of the housing market. When Ellie Mae went public back in 2011, it raised a modest $45 million and established an initial market value south of $150 million—or about 25 times less than its valuation in the Thoma Bravo deal.

Thoma Bravo has had an impressive upward climb of its own, with its 35 completed private equity deals in 2018 representing a YoY increase of nearly 60%, according to the PitchBook Platform. And the Ellie Mae deal is right in line with Thoma Bravo’s usual preferences: Since the start of 2010, more than 80% of the firm’s PE deals have come in the IT sector.

Read More – www.pitchbook.com

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DoorDash Adds $500M to Food Delivery Duel With Postmates

Lately, food delivery startup DoorDash has had a voracious appetite for capital.

Six months after closing a $250 million Series E, the Bay Area company is in talks to raise around $500 million from Temasek Holdings at a valuation of more than $6 billion, per The Wall Street Journal, roughly 10 times what DoorDash was worth four years ago.

Backed by investors including CRV, Sequoia, Coatue Management and DST Global, DoorDash had a strong 2018 when it came to VC funding, pulling in more than $780 million and achieving unicorn status in March, following a $535 million round led by SoftBank’s Vision Fund. Its valuation rose to $4 billion last August, following another $250 million fundraise.

DoorDash was founded in 2013 by a group of Stanford University students, including current CEO Tony Xu. The company has quickly grabbed a sizable market share and delivers food from restaurants to customers in more than 1,000 cities across the US and Canada. In January, it became the first food delivery startup to operate in all 50 states, per TechCrunch.

By now, it’s well-established that the growing trend of pondering a visually attractive menu online and ordering restaurant food from the comfort of your home is not going to fizzle out anytime soon. The global market for online food delivery is expected to reach $112 billion by 2023, according to Research and Markets, and competition in the space can be fierce.

One of DoorDash’s key competitors, food delivery unicorn Postmates, has also been grabbing headlines in the past week. Founded in 2011, the San Francisco-based company has hauled in plenty of capital as well, raising more than $670 million in VC funding overall, including a $100 million round in January from new investor BlackRock and a group of existing backers that includes Tiger Global. That latest round valued Postmates at $1.85 billion.

Read More – www.pitchbook.com

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Companies press Brexit panic button in further blow to Theresa May

The scale of no-deal panic gripping major companies has been thrown into sharp focus by a series of damage-limitation announcements, as corporate Britain signalled it is running out of patience with Westminster gridlock.

Sir James Dyson, the Brexit-backing billionaire, dealt a further blow to the government by revealing he is shifting his company headquarters to Singapore in a move that drew sharp criticism.

Dyson’s decision to move his HQ out of the UK came on a day in which a series of high-profile names revealed measures to mitigate the impact of a disorderly departure from the EU:

  • P&O announced that its entire fleet of cross-Channel ferries will be re-registered under the Cypriot flag, as the 182-year-old British maritime operator activated its Brexit plans.
  • Sony confirmed it is moving its European headquarters from London to Amsterdam.

• The chief executive of luxury carmaker Bentley said the company was stockpiling parts and described Brexit as a “killer” threatening his firm’s profitability.

• Retailers Dixons Carphone and Pets at Home announced plans to shore up supplies in the event of chaos at British ports.

P&O, which began life as the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation company in 1837, said all six of its cross-Channel ferries will be re-registered from the UK registry in Cyprus to keep EU tax benefits. The ferries include, the Spirit of Britain, the Pride of Kent and the Pride of Canterbury.

Sony confirmed it was merging its London-based European unit with a new entity based in Amsterdam that would become the new continental HQ. Sony said: “In this way we can continue our business as usual without disruption once the UK leaves the EU.”

The boss of Pets at Home, the nation’s biggest pet supplier, said his company had started stockpiling essentials – including cat food – as “we don’t want families to run out of food for their pets” after Brexit day on 29 March.

Sir James Dyson failed to appear at a media event at which his company announced the relocation of its corporate base from Wiltshire to Singapore. Dyson, who was a leading supporter of the leave campaign who urged ministers to walk away without a deal saying “they’ll come to us”, did not explain why he is taking the HQ of the firm he founded in 1991 out of the UK.

The chief executive of Dyson, Jim Rowan, said the move from Wiltshire to Singapore had “nothing to do with Brexit” but was about “future-proofing” the business. The move of Dyson’s legal entity from the UK to Singapore “will happen over the coming months”, meaning it could take place before Brexit.

The decision to leave the UK was made by Sir James together with “the executive team”, Dyson said. Sir James, who owns 100% of the company, has built up a £9.5bn personal fortune making him the 12th richest person in Britain according to the Sunday Times rich list.

A spokeswoman for the 71-year-old billionaire said he would “continue to divide his time between Singapore and the UK as the business requires it”.

His company employs 4,500 people in the UK out of a global workforce of 12,000. It said the HQ move would not affect British jobs

Rowan said moving to Singapore was part of “the evolution” of the company. When asked whether Dyson could still be referred to as one of Britain’s best success stories, he said the firm should now be referred to as a “global technology company”. When he was prime minister David Cameron hailed Dyson as a “great British success story”.

Sir James is not the first pro-Brexit billionaire to pull back from the UK since the referendum. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest person with a £21bn fortune, was reported last year to be planning to leave Britain for Monaco.

Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, said the litany of business announcements should send politicians a clear and simple message. “A March no-deal must be ruled out immediately,” she said. “This is the only way to halt irreversible damage and restore business confidence.”

Theresa May told business lobby groups on Tuesday that she was refusing to rule out a no deal as she tries to persuade reluctant MPs to back her Brexit plan by arguing that the only way to avoid crashing out of the EU is to sign up to her proposals. That amounted to a rebuke to the chancellor, Philip Hammond, who suggested last week that a no-deal Brexit would be taken off the table in another conference call with 330 corporate executives.

 

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Merger growth drives Grant Thornton International to record £4.3bn revenues

Grant Thornton International reported record revenues of $5.45bn (£4.28bn), lifted by income expansion from international mergers, and strong growth in its tax and advisory arms.

The figure is up $450m on last year, representing an average growth of 9.4 per cent across the whole organisation – slightly behind the 10.7 per cent global growth at BDO, one of its chief mid-market rivals.

Peter Bodin, chief executive of the professional services firm’s international network, headquartered in the UK, said: “Our success this year is the result of a deliberate strategic focus on our core mid-market client base, and our key strategic growth markets where we want to be successful.

“Being clear on where we need to develop our capabilities, and focusing on quality in those core markets, has underpinned this performance.”

Strong mergers and acquisitions activity underpinned much of Grant Thornton International’s growth, with the firm making 24 deals with 10 other companies. Mergers in Japan and South Africa drove revenue increases of 18.7 per cent and 54.7 per cent in Asia and Africa respectively. Average growth in Europe stood at 7.7 per cent.

The US remained its biggest market, generating $2.5bn in fee income, followed by $1.5bn in Europe.

“It’s great to see our firms from markets across the globe flourishing as we continue to build a sustainable next-generation professional services organisation,” said Bodin.

Across its service lines, tax grew by 14.8 per cent, and advisory by 10.4 per cent.

Full results for Grant Thornton’s UK operations have not yet been released. The firm is currently the UK’s fifth-largest auditor – behind global giants the Big Four – Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC – but is set to lose that title after the impending merger of sixth-place BDO UK with Moore Stephens.

 

Read More – www.cityam.com

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Mike Ashley in talks over rescue bid for struggling HMV

Mike Ashley is considering a rescue bid for HMV, the music and film retailer that collapsed into administration last month.

The Sports Direct boss is understood to have held talks with suppliers to the ailing business about a rescue deal, which could see him link the HMV brand to other parts of his high street empire including House of Fraser, Sports Direct or potentially Game Digital, in which Sports Direct owns a 25% stake.

A successful deal for HMV’s 125 stores would see Ashley grab another major slice of the high street following Sports Direct’s acquisition of the bike specialist Evans Cycles in October and department store chain House of Fraser in August, both of which were bought out of administration.

While Ashley takes a look at many potential retail deals, and Sports Direct holds stakes in multiple high street chains including the struggling French Connection and Debenhams, ‎sources told Sky News – which first reported Ashley’s interest in HMV – that he was serious about buying the music retailer.

Ashley has also made clear his interest in Debenhams, which is seeking to refinance its debts by the end of this month after a torrid 2018. Ashley has offered to bail the department store chain out with a £40m loan on terms that would give him the whip hand over the company, in which Sports Direct already owns a near 30% stake.

 

Read More – www.theguardian.com