• Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) reported third quarter earnings of $5.25 a share, versus Zacks estimates of $4.14 a share, as revenues rose to $12.37 billion from $11.02 billion

• Citigroup (NYSE:C) reported a 27 cent per share loss for the quarter, inline with Zacks estimates, on revenues of $20.4 billion

• Baxter International (NYSE:BAX) reported third quarter earnings of 98 cents a share, one cent above Zacks estimates, on revenues of $3.15 billion

• Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) is due to launch its new version of a touchscreen Blackberry, the Storm2 today

• Singapore's Oversea-Chinese Banking Group agreed to pay ING Group (NYSE:ING) $1.46 billion for its private banking operations in Asia

• According to Gartner data Acer overtook Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) as the number 2 PC computer brand by market share, with 15.4% of the global market, versus Dell's 12.8% and Hewlett-Packard's (NYSE:HPQ) 20%

• Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE:BUD) passed its $7 billion divestment goal to help repay its $52 billion Anheuser-Busch takeover, agreeing

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BlackRock’s $13.5 billion deal raises the valuation bar.

ETF and index people the world ‘round are smiling today. $13.5 billion is a big number. And this BlackRock deal is big not just for the index/ETF industry, but the financial sector in general.  It underscores just how big basis point-linked passive assets have gotten.

As I said a couple days ago in my IU.eu blog titled BlackRock IS the Buyer (Paul Amery has a nice follow-on blog there as well), this is a powerhouse deal. It’s a deal that minces no words, and says what it means. And what it means is we’ve suddenly got a global behemoth, THE global behemoth of an asset manager, with $2.7 trillion in assets. Good lord.  And frankly, on paper at least, it’s a marriage made in heaven, with BGI in a dominant position where BlackRock is mostly absent: ETFs and institutional indexed asset

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BlackRock will buy BGI for $13.5 billion in a mega-merger sure to send shock waves throughout the industry.

 

 

In perhaps one of the worst-kept secrets in exchange-traded funds industry history, giant asset manager BlackRock Inc. said late Thursday it had finalized a $13.5 billion deal to buy Barclays Global Investors.

The combined company, to be called BlackRock Global Investors, will represent nearly $3 trillion in assets under management.

Interestingly, Barclays will keep about a 20% stake in the new BGI. BlackRock will only have to fork over about half of the estimated deal amount in cash; according to reports, BlackRock is exchanging shares of its common stock to complete roughly the other half of the mega-merger.

Officially, Barclays' original buyer (CVC Capital Partners ) has about a week to try to match BlackRock's offer. But the private equity firm would face a big upgrade in terms. CVC Capital  almost had a deal for all

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New reports put BlackRock's deal for BGI at $13 billion.

 

During the weekend, several new articles appeared in British papers reporting that BlackRock Inc. is closing in on a deal to acquire Barclays Global Investors, the parent company of iShares, in a transaction worth up to US$13 billion.

But not all the reports were as definitive as the one coming out of the US late last week. Pensions & Investments magazine, on its Web site, broke the news late Friday afternoon after markets had closed in the US. It quoted unnamed sources as saying that the groundwork for a deal was in place and that an announcement would be forthcoming.

The story also had estimates that a BlackRock purchase of BGI would surpass $10 billion. (See related story here.)

However, in a story over the weekend, a report out of London by the Financial Times said that Barclays isn't expected to

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Money management giant BlackRock is close to announcing that it has won the bidding war for Barclays Global Investors, according to a report on the Web site of Pensions & Investments magazine……
……Sources also told P&I that CVC Capital Partners, which originally agreed to pay $4.5 billion for BGI’s iShares exchange-traded funds business, would get an [...]

BlackRock reportedly winner of BGI auction.

 

Money management giant BlackRock is close to announcing that it has won the bidding war for Barclays Global Investors, according to a report on the Web site of Pensions & Investments magazine.

 

The story, by veteran journalist Douglas Appell, said that BlackRock is expected to announce shortly that it would be BGI's new owner. The article cited unnamed sources.

Someone not connected directly to the deal told Appell that word of an agreeement likely will come within days.

Sources also told P&I that CVC Capital Partners, which originally agreed to pay $4.5 billion for BGI's iShares exchange-traded funds business, would get an opportunity to raise its original bid.

The CVC deal had a window for BGI to shop itself unti June 18. A P&I source thought it was unlikely that CVC would be willing to top BlackRock's $10-billion plus offer for the combined BGI franchise.

P&I estimates that a joining

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CVC To Keep Staff At BGI?

In this column by Kathleen Pender of the San Francisco Chronicle, Barclays Global Investors' impending deal with European private equity player CVC Capital Partners is reviewed. BGI insists that the new parent won't slash current staffing levels. 

But others aren't so sure, figuring that CVC will streamline operations and unload it during the next bull market. Just a thought ... what if that turns out to be fairly soon? Private equity firms can move fast ... but later this year or even next would seem awfully fast, even for the most optimistic and aggressive speculator. 

You can read the column here.

 

Bogle Takes On Institutional Money Managers

Vanguard founder John Bogle is raising an interesting point these days.

As noted in this New York Times column by Gretchen Morgenson, the indexing pioneer is pointing out that much of Wall Street's excesses resulting

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Deal goes through midmorning Thursday ...

 

Early in the day on Thursday, Barclays PLC announced it had sold its iShares exchange-traded fund unit to CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Luxembourg, for $4.4 billion.

It was only a few weeks ago that rumors that the unit was for sale began to emerge. Once those were confirmed, CVC was eventually identified as the preferred buyer. Barclays has repeatedly refused to accept funds from the British government as part of a rescue program for financial institutions, presumably because it wanted to avoid being even partially nationalized. However, the bank still needed to raise cash, and the sale of iShares should help with that.

A Barclays press release contains the key elements of the deal. The release states that Barclays will realize "an expected net gain on sale of US$2.2 billion." Barclays is financing the bulk of the deal,

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What do iShares, Formula One, Tower Records and the Belgian Post Office have in common? Sometime next week, they'll probably all be owned by the same private equity firm.

That's right, it's (almost) official: Barclays issued a statement this morning confirming reports in the FT and elsewhere that its iShares unit was likely being sold to CVC Capital Partners. The Barclays statement read:

 

Barclays notes recent press comment regarding a possible sale of iShares. As announced on 16 March, Barclays has held discussions with a number of potentially interested parties.

We now have a preferred bidder, CVC Capital Partners. If these negotiations reach a satisfactory conclusion, it would lead to a sale of Barclays iShares business without the attributable securities lending business. Earlier speculation assumed the sale of both iShares and securities lending.

A further announcement will be made in due course.

 

So much for Jim Wiandt's recent

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A trio of private equity groups has emerged as the finalists in the auction of ETF leader Barclays Global Investors. 

 

Three private equity groups have apparently emerged as the finalists in the auction of exchange-traded funds leader Barclays Global Investors.

According to a report in the Financial Times dated March 31, parent Barclays rejected bids for BGI from Goldman Sachs and others.

The paper says that the London-based bank considered offers turned in last Friday to be insufficient and offered to accept revised proposals on Monday. 

Goldman Sachs and others dropped out, according to the report by Jane Croft and Martin Arnold. The story indicated that those opting not to continue in the auction process were unwilling to meet Barclays' demands of at least $6.5 billion for BGI.

The paper also reported that a trio of private equity groups did resubmit bids. Those came from: Bain Capital and Colony Capital; Hellman & Friedman and Apax Partners; and CVC

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