Time Inc., the American media company that brings you magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Fortune, has reportedly become a buyout target for none other than billionaire investor Edgar Bronfman Jr. Stay with Sentifi to monitor the movement of Time’s stock and how the financial crowd is taking the news
Time Inc.: Shares soar 18 percent on buyout rumor
Bronfman partnered with Russian-born billionaire Leonard Blavatnik and Israeli businessman Ynon Kreiz to make the bid. Time Inc. is in a position where taking the offer would be the smarter move. The company has been suffering a decline in print ad sales, while its shares have fallen 12 percent this year and 42 percent in the last two years. The crowd speculates that Bronfman will subsequently make a higher offer, which makes it that much harder for Time Inc. to decline.
DirecTV: AT&T unveils DirecTV Now
AT&T was long feared to offer a new cable service called DirecTV Now that would start a pay-TV price war with $35 a month for 100-plus channels, but it proved to be untrue. That too-good-to-be-true deal is only a limited-time offer. The regular pricing of the new service is $35 for around 60 channels, not enough to threaten the competition of $40 for more than 70 channels from Dish Network and $55 for more than 100 channels from Sony.
GB Energy: Customers are owed £24 million in credit balances
Just because GB Energy went burst doesn’t mean all problems go away. Worst case scenario, all U.K. households could be asked to pick up the cost of refunding the money. Best case scenario, another supplier agrees to acquire GB’s 160,000 customers and honor their credit balances in full. It could be quite tricky, according to many industry sources, as there were no guarantees that the customers would not switch to a different supplier. That said, the regulator remains optimistic of finding a supplier who is willing to honor the balances within days.
Meitu Inc.: Doubts cloud the company’s planned IPO
China’s largest selfie app maker is planning to raise about $750 million for an IPO in Hong Kong that would give itself a valuation of $5 billion. But, the possibility of its running into pricing hurdles is huge because investors are still doubtful about the company’s ability to monetize its services to justify its high valuation. The company has about 450 million monthly active users, and its revenue comes from the selfie app and the smartphones that it sells. The problem is, and this is why investors are iffy about the IPO, the company is still losing money and most of its revenue comes from selling smartphones. The company will meet potential investors in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, New York and Boston until Dec. 2 to finalize the price range.
Actelion: Receives an acquisition offer from Johnson & Johnson
The offer raised Actelion shares 2.98 percent toward the $20 billion market cap as investors expected Actelion will accept a higher bid. The acquisition will complement J&J with two drugs that are expected to have huge sales. It’s especially benificial for J&J because the two drugs are read-made sources of revenues that will give it a lot of freedom to look for more M&A to offset the forecast effect of biosimilars on its well-selling drug Remicade.
Zenefits: Is fined $3.5 million for licensing violations
The company admitted that its would-be agents used software to circumvent online classes they needed to take to be licensed. The company has previously agreed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle licensing violations in many states. Now, California’s insurance regulator will collect $3.5 million from the company, for a total of $7 million, if it fails to comply with the settlement in the next two years.
Deutsche Telekom: Suffers a cyberattack that affects 900,000 customers
An external attack attempted to infect the routers of Deutsche Telekom with a malware, which ultimately failed and caused crashes or restrictions for 4 percent to 5 percent of all routers. The company has rolled out an software upgrade to affected routers. It is still investigating the source of the issue, and it doesn’t rule out the possibility of a DDoS attack.
Liberty House Group: Could save 1,700 jobs of Tata Steel
The ill-fated steel company Tata Steel may find a buyer of its U.K. business in Liberty House Group for £100 million. The two companies are working on the due diligence and other work streams so that the sale can be concluded.
Elliott Management Corp.: Will receive an answer from Samsung soon on suggestion of breaking up its business
Following the Galaxy Note 7 debacle, the vulture hedge fund proposed Samsung to split into two companies, pay a $26 billion dividend to stockholders, pledge to return 75% of free cash flow to investors in the future, and appoint three new independent directors. This is not the first time Elliott Management made this proposal to a company; its methods have come under fire over the years. Samsung promised it will respond to activist investors by the end of November, but so far, there’s been no word coming from the troubled company.
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