M&A

28 November, 2009

PRESS DIGEST - British business - Nov 29

The Independent on Sunday

TRAVEL GIANT EXPECTED TO SHOW STRONG RESULTS

Thomas Cook(TCG.L) and Thomson owner TUI Travel(TT.L) are both expected to post strong results this week and report a last-minute dash for sun and snow. TUI's results will show that a strong performance in the UK and Germany helped it through a difficult period for the travel industry with pre-tax profits coming in at around 365 million pounds, up from 320 million pounds last year. Broker Charles Stanley says that profits at Thomas Cook are likely to be at around 310 million pounds, about the same as last year.

DIC SET TO SELL MERLIN STAKE

Dubai International Capital is expected to sell its 20 percent stake in Merlin Entertainments when the London Eye and Legoland owner floats on the London Stock Exchange early next year. The move comes as a surprise as Merlin's float is one of the most anticipated of 2010. Blackstone is expected to slightly reduce its stake but the family behind the Legoland group is considering increasing its stake. Merlin has been the poster child for the private equity industry, growing from owning just Sea Life Centres to being the second largest entertainment group in the world after Disney.

PEARL HIRES PWC OVER VPS SALE

Pearl Group has hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to consider the sale of VPS Holdings. VPS, worth up to 200 million pounds, protects and manages 'void properties', a business which is particularly profitable in the US because of the failures related to sub-prime mortgages.

The Observer

SUPERMARKETS' PLEA TO MANDELSON

Major supermarkets in Britain have been lobbying the government to reject Competition Commission proposals to put their relationships with suppliers under the authority of an independent ombudsman. The Competition Commission has suggested that suppliers could make anonymous complaints to the ombudsman, but the supermarkets say this would prevent them from addressing the complaint and would not allow them a right of reply. Freedom of Information requests made by Action Aid and Friends of the Earth reveal that since April 2008 Asda, Sainsbury(SBRY.L) and Tesco(TSCO.L) have held 13 meetings with officials at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

BUDGET HOTELS IN ONLINE WAR OVER COST OF A CUT-PRICE ROOM

A turf war has broken out between Premier Inn and Travelodge, Britain's two biggest budget hotel chains. Premier Inn, owned by Whitbread(WTB.L), has been advertising rooms for only 29 pounds a night. However, Travelodge has been emailing its customers informing them: "Premier Inn has potentially been overcharging thousands of customers trying to book a Premier Offer 29 pounds room since June 2009." The email says that customers had a less than 1 percent chance of finding a 29 pound room if they used Quick Book compared with a 24 percent chance for those clicking on a Premier Offer banner.

UK MUST FIND 600,000 NEW ENGINEERS, CLAIMS REPORT

The Engineering and Technology Board's annual health check on the state of the industrial labour market, due out on Tuesday, will show that the manufacturing sector needs to tackle a potentially severe skills shortage. The report found that the UK needs to recruit and train an extra 587,000 engineers between now and 2017. The report says: "The UK has great potential to rebalance its economy by drawing on its strong manufacturing base. However shortages of new engineers and of the further education lecturers to train them could seriously jeopardise this, impacting on successful British industrial including manufacturing, aerospace and construction."

Prepared for Reuters by Durrants ($1=.6105 Pound)

Source: http://www.reuters.com