Government could halt acquisitions years after a deal was concluded under new legislation
Ministers are seeking sweeping powers to block takeovers by Chinese and other foreign companies on national security grounds as part of the biggest shake-up in the UK’s industrial intervention policy for nearly two decades.
A national security and investment bill is due to be published on Wednesday, which would also allow ministers to retrospectively halt acquisitions any time in the five years after the deal was concluded.
Related: UK security bill signals open door era for foreign takeovers is over
You can’t be neutral about a company involved in slave labour, or in significant intellectual property theft
Continue reading...Ticket seller proposes keeping US and Canada but selling rest of StubHub’s resale business
The ticket resale website Viagogo has offered to sell StubHub’s businesses in the UK and outside North America, in an attempt to answer the concerns of Britain’s competition watchdog which provisionally blocked the $4bn (£3bn) tie-up between the two rivals.
Viagogo has put forward plans to sell StubHub’s holding company, which operates all of its international primary and secondary businesses, including its UK operations, along with its customer base. Under the proposals, Viagogo would retain StubHub’s much larger US and Canadian ticket resale business.
Related: Competition watchdog intervenes in Viagogo's $4bn takeover of StubHub
Continue reading...Sources say legislation could be published and presented to parliament this week
Ministers are close to publishing a long-awaited national security and investment bill, aiming to tighten the rules governing foreign investment across Britain’s critical infrastructure and parts of its defence industries.
The proposals emerge at a time of heightened political concern about Chinese ownership in key parts of the economy – while the coronavirus pandemic has also revealed dependencies on foreign suppliers for critical goods.
Continue reading...Watchdog’s look into secondary ticketing shows biggest 10% of resellers make up between 80% and 100% of sales
The vast majority of tickets for events on resale sites Viagogo and StubHub are advertised by “professional resellers” including touts seeking to make money from ordinary fans, according to new evidence that sheds light on the secretive “secondary ticketing” industry.
Data revealing the influence wielded by touts emerged as part of the competition watchdog’s investigation into Viagogo’s $4bn (£3bn) takeover of StubHub.
Related: Competition watchdog intervenes in Viagogo's $4bn takeover of StubHub
Continue reading...Discount of $425m ends acrimonious battle over luxury sector’s biggest-ever deal
France’s LVMH will pay slightly less to buy the US jeweller Tiffany & Co after the two firms agreed to end a bitter dispute triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and salvage the luxury sector’s biggest-ever deal.
The new takeover price was set at $131.5 (£101.6) a share, down from $135 in the original deal, the companies said on Thursday, bringing the total price tag to about $15.8bn.
LVMH, or Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is the world’s biggest luxury goods group and is owned and run by Bernard Arnault, Europe’s richest man. Here are its main brands.
Related: Luxury player: why Bernard Arnault is making a blockbuster bid for Tiffany’s
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