Vue Entertainment in £350m buyout
Vue Entertainment, the cinemas operator, announced a management buyout worth about £350 million — £50 million less than first mooted in May. Under the deal, in partnership with Bank of Scotland Corporate, a subsidiary of HBOS, investors Boston Ventures, Clarity Partners and Legal & General Ventures will sell their shareholdings to Vue Entertainment and BoS.
Commission may look into telecoms
Neelie Kroes, the European Competition Commissioner, said that telecommunications is a potential area for a new sector inquiry by the Commission. “Telecommunications could be an excellent area to start an inquiry,” she said. “That could be the third inquiry in my mandate (after energy and banking).” She called telecoms a “challenging area”.
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Börse ‘at end of line’ on Euronext
Deutsche Börse has reached the limit of what it is prepared to offer Euronext shareholders in its bid to convince them to abandon a proposed merger with the New York Stock Exchange, sources close to the German exchange’s management said last night. “We have reached the end of the line,” the source said after Euronext spurned Deutsche Börse’s latest offer.
General Motors’ debt plan attacked
Credit-rating agencies cut General Motors’s debt deeper into junk territory after announcing changes to a $5.6 billion loan package that was viewed as detrimental to bondholders. Both Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service lowered the automaker’s nearly $5 billion of debt after the carmaker said that it would repackage loans that were designed to boost liquidity.