RARE Alert: Israeli property giant said to be weighing outright purchase of Atrium European Real Estate Limited

Another piece of random RARE has landed on my desk.

Word is Gazit Globe, the Tel Aviv-based shopping centre giant, is keen on buying out the remainder of Atrium European Real Esate Limited that it doesn't own.

Flag pole alert - part 8

Deal watchers looking for the next big FTSE 100 deal should read Ian King's excellent column in today's The Times.

According to the Sky News business supremo, high-level investment bankers have told the former The Times business editor that the next FTSE 100 takeover bid could be carried out by a Chinese bidder.

Argus Media Group appoints bankers to carry out sale of up to £1 billion - part 5

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days - I have been very busy scoffing chocolate over the long weekend.

Anyway, I'm back on the case this week and before I get round to breaking another earth shattering "exclusive" I thought I would share with loyal readers a little bit of gossip about the Argus Media Group sale.

Flag pole alert - part 6

Bryce Elder's stock market report column in the Financial Times caught my eye this morning.

The intrepid hack led his column with a juicy market tale about how UBS - British American Tobacco's longstanding corporate broker and financial adviser - had decided to stop carrying out equity research on the tobacco sector despite recently poaching a top sector analyst from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Revealed: Argus Media Group appoints bankers to carry out sale of up to £1 billion - part 2

It's always great when a scoop is formally confirmed by the company involved. Here is a statement that has just been released by Argus Media Group following my piece from earlier today:

Argus Media statement

11 November 2015

Argus Media today confirmed that it has appointed financial advisers to review strategic options for the next phase of its development as a leading provider of pricing information to global commodity markets.

Revealed: Argus Media Group appoints bankers to carry out sale of up to £1 billion

Argus Media Group, the publishing company that sets world energy prices, could be about to change hands for up to £1 billion.

According to well-placed sources, Argus Media Group has begun working with Bank of America Merrill Lynch on a strategic review and contacted some of the City's top private equity firms to gauge their interest in the company.

SAB Miller said to have formally appointed Goldman Sachs as defence adviser; speculation in talks with Diageo

Here is a juicy jackanory to set your pulses racing on a Monday morning.

I hear from top sources that SAB Miller has formally appointed heavyweight investment bankers from Goldman Sachs as defence advisers alongside uber grandee dealmakers Simon Robey and Simon Warshaw, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Cazenove.

Coincidence? - part 3

Navel-gazing in financial journalism is reaching a new high.

Indeed, yesterday evening Bloomberg carried out its own investigation into why SAB Miller was forced to stick out a takeover announcement regarding a $250 billion tie-up with Anheuser-Busch InBev. Here is a link:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-16/ab-inbev-sabmiller-race-to-finish-as-takeover-rules-force-hand

Coincidence?

SAB Miller shares are sharply up this afternoon - almost 4pc at pixel time.

Some readers might be wondering why.

Hotel Buzz - part 5

So, the venerable Financial Times has gone big this morning on its Starwood/InterContinental Hotels merger tale, running it as the main story in its Company & Markets section. The story is carefully written, implying talks were held, it's early days and something may or may not happen etc. However, the fact that the Pink 'Un has given it some welly this morning implies FT hacks have properly stood this one up.

Meanwhile, the rest of this morning's newspaper business sections have chosen to ignore the tale after IHG put a denial statement, saying it isn't in talks with Starwood about a combination (although I still don't quite understand why the London-listed company hasn't disseminated the statement via the UK RNS).

Equity research

I see bankers at Bank of America Merrill Lynch were involved in helping the British government place some of its stake in the Royal Mail last night, raising around £750 million for taxpayers.

Funny that because I'm sure equity research boffins round Bank of America Merrill Lynch published an upbeat note the postal service operator just a few days ago, upgrading the stock to "overweight" and raising its target price from £5.00 to £6.00.

Ouch!

Things are going from bad to worse at Bank of America Merrill Lynch's European investment banking team.

This year the hyper bullish investment bank has advised on three high-profile, European "bear hugs" that have gone nowhere. Those bear hugs were: Pfizer's £70 billion bid for AstraZeneca; Weir Group's attempt to merge with Finland's Metso as part of a £8.5 billion deal; and Destination Maternity's £300m tilt for Mothercare.

Bear hug

Quelle surprise - another Bank of America Merrill Lynch bear hug has fallen over.

This year the Wall Street investment bank has advised several companies trying to buy rival businesses using a "bear hug", an aggressive tactic used in M&A to force the the target company to the negotiating table by making an indicative offer public.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch returns with another bear hug

Hat tip to Bryce Elder, the stock market reporter over at the Financial Times, for landing the best M&A story of the morning and who looks to be on a bit of deals story winning streak (remember last week Bryce broke the story about the Dialog and AMS merger - time for a pay rise, Ed?).

This morning the flying scotsman revealed in his market report that Mothercare had received a £266m takeover bid from US outfit Destination Maternity Corporation. Here is a link to Bryce's market report: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bcc5efe8-013b-11e4-9750-00144feab7de.html#axzz36INXxo2U

Bank of America Merrill Lynch sees £80 billion worth deals vanish in two days

Dealmakers round at Bank of America Merrill Lynch must be feeling pretty sore right now.

Why? Well, rainmakers at the US investment bank have just seen about £80 billion worth of deals go up in smoke in the last 48 hours.