CIGNA Corporation (NYSE:CI) – market cap as of 09/03/2018: $42.7bn Express Scripts Holding Co (NASDAQ:ESRX) – market cap as of 09/03/2018: $45.7bn Introduction On March 8, 2018, Cigna Corporation announced the acquisition of Express Scripts Holding for a cash and stock consideration of $67bn. The combination of Cigna – a Read more…
XL Group Ltd (NYSE:XL) – market cap as of 09/03/2018: $14.4bn Axa SA (EPA:CS) – market cap as of 09/03/2018: €54.5bn Introduction On the March 5, 2018, the French insurer Axa announced its intention to buy 100% of Bermuda-based XL Group, which also operates in the insurance industry, for $57.6/share. Read more…
Laird plc (LON: LRD) – market cap as of 09/03/18: £979.8 m Introduction On March 1, 2018, Advent International announced it will acquire the UK electronic components producer Laird plc for £1.2bn, or £2/share. The deal marks yet another conquest for private equity firms in search for viable targets to Read more…
Introduction In the midst of a particularly cold North American winter induced by an unexpected southwards movement of the polar vertex in late December 2017, New York Harbor Heating Oil surged nearly 15% from its December low through the end of January. This important petroleum middle distillate often used for Read more…
Introduction To maximise our profit when investing in financial instruments we try to rely on analysis of the underlying values, macroeconomic trends and possibly other quantitative methods. However, as much as we try to optimise our returns, we often fail to do so, as we fall prey to our own Read more…
US Continuing a monthly streak of surprises, after gapping down -0.66% immediately after Gary Cohn’s resignation as economic advisor of the current US administration, the S&P recovered, increasing 3.25% weekly. In particular all the major indexes rallied (Dow +1,77%, S&P +1,74%, Nasdaq +1,93%) on Friday as non-farm payrolls were 313k Read more…
Macro Environment 2018 is bound to be the point of inflection for the Greek economy. The Bank of Greece reports that GDP will grow 2.5% over the next two years, while the European Commission expects a 1.6% growth in 2017 – the economy’s best performance in a decade. Greece’s 10-year Read more…
The Theory Behind the Implied Vol Jump The classical Black-Scholes model for option pricing assumes that stock prices follow a Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM) with constant drift and, more relevant for the scope of this article, constant volatility (σ). Analytically: where r is the risk-free rate, q is dividend yield Read more…
US This week, the main events were the inaugural testimony by new Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell to the House Financial Services and Senate Banking Committees on Tuesday and Thursday, respectively, and the announcement that President Trump is planning to impose tariffs on steel (10%) and aluminium (25%) imports. Mr. Read more…
Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) – market cap as of 02/03/2018: $726.28bn Introduction Every time Amazon announces an acquisition, it is hard not to feel the excitement. All the more so considering that the online giant has had an uncertain relationship with M&A and has only in the recent years garnered the Read more…
Introduction The Direct Listing process, also known as Direct Public Offering (DPO), is a procedure by which companies can have their shares publicly traded on an exchange without the assistance of an investment bank. The company, indeed, will just have to submit the necessary documents for the listing, look for Read more…
Daimler AG (ETR: DAI) – Market Cap €72.05 bn Geely Automobiles Holding Ltd.(HKG: 0175) – Market Cap HKD 222.96bn (€23 bn) Introduction On 23rd of February, the Chinese car manufacturer Geely announced that it had gathered a 9.7% stake of the German automotive colossus Daimler. This came as a surprise Read more…
Temenos Group (SWX:TEMN) – market cap as of 23/02/2018: CHF7.60bn Fidessa Group (LON:FDSA) – market cap as of 23/02/2018: GBP1.47bn Introduction On February 21st, 2018, the boards of both Temenos and Fidessa have reached an agreement for the takeover of the former over the latter for £1.4 billion. The two Read more…
Rite Aid (NYSE:RAD) – market cap as of 23/02/2018: $2.22bn Introduction On the 20th February, Rite Aid Corporation, one of the leading US drugstore chains, entered into a definitive merger agreement with Albertsons Companies, one of the largest American private equity-backed grocery retailers. The deal will result in the creation of a Read more…
The Blackstone Group L.P. (NYSE:BX) – market cap as of 23/02/2018: USD41.1bn Thomson Reuters Corporation (TSX:TRI) – market cap as of 23/02/2018: CAD35.8bn Introduction On January 30, 2018, Thomson Reuters announced the agreement to sell a 55% stake in its Financial and Risk unit to the US private equity firm Read more…