Change of UK takeover rules - more complexity for little gain?

New rules regulating UK takeovers have been devised by the cartel is run by industry insiders and while rule is piled upon rule there is little change to the basic flaw in the set-up: the Takeover Panel is dominated by industry insiders that have little or no interest to stop the merger merry-go-round that does little to inculcate British business with a more long-term outlook to business management. In a perverse fashion some participants in the merger game are already plotting to suggest their clients make meaningless 1p bids in order to circumvent the spirit of the new regulations. One has to wonder what the investor's fiduciaries, the major investment institutions that are the overall paymasters of the managements of listed companies will do to prevent such abuses from happening.
(31/10/11)

Another sad end to a 'Private' Equity buyout

Exaggerated claims about the advantages of the 'Private' Equity business model receive another dampener from news that the former British Printing Company which sailed under the name of Polestar UK for the past years has left the UK Pension regulator (clear text: the British Taxpayer)  with a massive bill to safeguard the pension scheme. Where are now the financial acrobats that benefit massively from the 'Private' Equity compensation model, where are the (mostly) anonymous investors who wash their hands when things in the funds they back go wrong?
(29/10/11)

$687 Mio Dollar 'fee' for an M+A adviser

We often have reiterated that the business or mergers and acquisitions needs to be more closely supervised. Not only do corporate laws and market regulations a good overhaul but the fiduciaries that control most of the major listed equities also need to review their practices. One can say that the top 20 to 30 investing institutions could at the stroke of a pen revolutionise corporate governance as their holdings constitute in effect a controlling bloc in most company registers. When it is disclosed that Olympus paid nearly a third in 'advisory fees' during the acquisition of a British company one is left in disbelief as this is certainly a highly unusual - and extreme - case of corportate governance gone AWOL. Is it beyond the Japanese regulators to clean up their act and once and for all drag corporate practice in Japan into the 21st century? Or is it necessary for international and national regulator to ringfence the Japanese Market in order to protect non-Japanese investors?
(21/10/2011)