Flag pole alert - part 7

Readers might recall the heightened speculation towards the back end of last year about British American Tobacco weighing a £50 billion break up takeover bid for Imperial Tobacco, now called Imperial Brands.

Well, I see Imperial Brands, formerly Imperial Tobacco, has just appointed Barclays as joint corporate broker alongside Credit Suisse.

Flag pole alert - part 3

The broker upgrades are coming thick and fast following Bryce Elder's piece on Imperial Tobacco late last week.

Yesterday, Citigroup upgraded Imperial Tobacco to a "buy" and now Exane BNP Paribas and Morgan Stanley have pieces out to clients on the topic. Below I have pasted the gist of the latest Exane note:

Evonik Industries said to have lined up multi-billion EURO/CHF debt financing package for acquisition deal; Clariant primary takeover target

Clariant's shares were down almost 5pc yesterday after Evonik's largest shareholder appeared to shoot down the likelihood of the German company making a move on the Swiss chemicals group.

Here is a link to the Bloomberg piece on the topic: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-02/clariant-drops-as-evonik-owner-shoots-down-deal-speculation

Another Aussie scoop: SAS swoops on Yorkshire Water

An Australian investment group that manages pensions for the New South Wales police force has secretly purchased a multi-million pound stake in Yorkshire Water, one of Britain's largest water companies.

Top sources down under tell me that in recent weeks the SAS Trustee Corporation, also known as the State Super, bought a 10pc shareholding in Kelda - the company that owns Yorkshire Water - from Citigroup Infrastructure Investors and Infracapital, which is part of FTSE 100-listed insurer Prudential.