He said: “There are lots of smaller and larger companies active in looking for mergers and acquisitions. It never surprises me to get a call saying, `Alan, let’s have a chat about getting the companies together’.”Share in the group plunged 20 per cent on news that merger talks with the as yet mystery suitor had been called off. In Greater London the price rise was half the national average at just 6.15 per cent and in the City of London, the Registry said that house prices fell nearly 11 per cent.Despite the slowdown in activity, there was continued growth at the top end of the market, with the number of houses being sold for more than pounds 1m rising from 760 to 765. However, the growth took place outside of Greater London where the number of pounds 1m-plus house sales fell from 469 to 436.Blaenau in Gwent recorded the sharpest increase in prices with the average house being sold for pounds 83,688 – a rise of 65 per cent on the final quarter of 2003. Hartlepool took the wooden spoon with a 6 per cent drop in the average sale price to pounds 76,132.. OXFORD BIOMEDICA is to pursue several further informal bid talks after the biotech company said yesterday that merger negotiations with its first suitor had collapsed.
The negotiations that have just been broken off are believed to have been with the acquisitive biotech company Vernalis. Sources said the talks stalled over a number of issues, including valuation. It is also understood that there was no agreement over the ongoing role of the company’s founders, the husband and wife duo Professors Alan and Susan Kingsman.
Vernalis is chaired by Peter Fellner, the former chairman of Celltech, with a mission to consolidate the fragmented UK biotech sector.The talks proved a “useful distraction”, according to Professor Alan Kingsman, the chief executive, and are understood to have flushed out other expressions of interest. A possible block to any sale may be its high stock-market valuation. Its shares were up as much as 18 per cent in New York yesterday, valuing it at $320m (pounds 172m). It has no debt and $12.8m in cash.Possible suitors include Jones Apparel, which owns the upmarket New York department store Barneys; Liz Claiborne; and Kellwood, the owner of Gerber Childrenswear. Another possibility is Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, which owns the maker of the children clothes line Garanamils.
Other private equity firms also are expected to take a look.OshKosh operates 150 outlets and speciality stores, and sells through 4,600 stores worldwide.. THERE HAS been a dramatic slump in the property market with house sales down by almost a quarter over the past 12 months, according to official figures released today. The Land Registry said just under than 230,000 houses were sold in England and Wales in the final three months of last year compared with more than 301,000 in the same period in 2003 – a fall of 24 per cent.
Housing experts said the Registry’s figures bore out anecdotal evidence from estate agents of a sharp slowdown in activity in the second half of last year as the property market cooled. There have quite simply been far fewer buyers in the market over the last six months or so. The Land Registry is now reporting transactions that were agreed in late summer or early autumn of last year and we can expect their next set of figures to show a further decline in volumes and prices.”The average sale price in England and Wales rose 11.82 per cent to pounds 182,920 year on year, the Registry said In the previous year the increase was 12.62 per cent.
The decline in transactions brings activity back towards what it was a decade ago, after the housing crash of the early 1990s.Miles Shipside, of the property website Rightmove, said: “The fall in prices is one thing, but the large fall in volumes tells a bigger story than the decline in prices. A spokesperson said of a New York Post story, which reported that OshKosh had spoken to several investment banks about its strategic options: “The company does not comment on rumour and speculation.” Goldman also made no comment.OshKosh is 94 per cent owned by the Hyde family, which has run it since the 1930s. In 2003 and 2004 it opened 15 “lifestyle” stores across the US, selling home accessories and clothes for children and adults.OshKosh has experienced fierce competition from discount stores such as Wal-Mart, and last week announced it was rolling back on the strategy because sales of lines other than childrens wear were sluggish. It was not until the early Sixties that its business took off, when it started to make the same outfits for children “so sons could dress like their fathers”, according to the company’s marketing.
OshKosh has tried in recent years to use its all-American brand to boost its presence in the adult market and to add other goods, such as car seats and buggies. OshKosh, based in the town of the same name in Wisconsin, was formed in 1895, making overalls for farmers and railroad workers. OSHKOSH B’GOSH, the US retailer best known for its sturdy children’s clothing, may sell itself to a larger rival or a private equity firm. It is thought to have hired the investment bank Goldman Sachs to consider its options.
Mr Turner said that unless the current balance of state benefits and voluntary saving changed, millions would face a bleak retirement.However, little in the way of real consensus is emerging on what these changes should be. The Institute of Directors (IoD) said the UK’s looming pensions problems could be stalled by ending forced retirement at a certain age. Three- quarters of IoD members said they opposed staff being forcibly pensioned- off. This, in turn, should lead to a reduction in the time taken and costs of negotiating PFI deals, the ministry said.The Air Tanker consortium, which is led by the Franco-German defence group EADS, is replacing the RAF’s current air-to-air tankers with a new fleet of Airbus A330 aircraft.It will also manage the fleet over the 29-year life of the contract, but Air Tanker has clashed with the MoD over the amount of risk the private sector should take if there is a shortfall in revenues from commercial use of the fleet when it is not in military service.. The project, the biggest single PFI contract ever undertaken by the Government, was awarded a year ago to the Air Tanker consortium but it has still not been named as preferred bidder and the actual signing of the deal is not now expected until the end of this year.
Lord Bach, the Defence Procurement minister, announced yesterday that a new private finance unit is to be set up within the MoD headed by Nick Prior, a senior executive on secondment from Partnerships UK.The aim of the new unit is to improve working relationships between the ministry and private industry and assess the viability of projects well before they are considered by the MoD’s investment approvals board. THE MINISTRY of Defence is to overhaul the way it handles contracts awarded under the private finance initiative after the severe delays that have hit a pounds 13bn order for new air-to-air refuelling tankers. Still, where there’s a fee there’s a way, and JP Morgan is now fully back on side with a new offer it hopes will be harder for the the board to reject.