>>> Stada attracts possible financial investors including Advent, Bain, Blacksto

Stada attracts possible financial investors including Advent, Bain, Blackstone, CVC and Permira - report (translated)

Stada management has been approached by several financial investors interested in obtaining a stake in the German drug company, Frankfurter Allgemeine reported.
The German-language daily, without identifying sources, said that since a shareholders' meeting two months ago, financial investors including Advent, Bain, Blackstone, CVC and Permira have sought conversations with the management about making an equity investment. However, the newspaper was told that the management has blocked such talks.
Sources close to Stada were cited as saying that in principle, the listed company's leadership is not totally opposed to such talks, but will only provide a deep look into company finances if the interested party has a concrete proposal.
The report said Stada's management, advised by the investment bank Perella Weinberg, is seeking strategic options to keep Stada operating independently. Stada management is considering whether the company might make large acquisitions, according to the daily's information.
The report said Stada has a market capitalization of EUR 2.8bn.

>>> Hyperloop TT postpones IPO (translated)

Hyperloop TT postpones IPO

Hyperloop Transportation Technology (HTT), the US-based innovative transportation solutions developer, is postponing its IPO, reported Hospodarske Noviny. The Czech language item cited CEO of the company, Dirk Ahlborn, who was visiting a conference in Slovakia last week.
HTT last year announced its intention to float , however Ahlborn said that the time is not right for a IPO and hence the company is looking for alternative routes.
He added that HTT does not need to raise money; however it wants to offer possibility to its shareholders to monetize their stake.
The report explained that the company has received funding from 800 private investors and 50 companies in exchange for company shares.
HTT is currently preparing vacuum tubes to facilitate travel at high speeds between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The route measures 550 kilometres and building one mile (1.6 kilometres) will cost USD 20m, the item added.

>>> EasyJet could consider taking part in European consolidation; Wizz Air too e

EasyJet could consider taking part in European consolidation; Wizz Air too expensive
The listed UK low-cost airline EasyJet is considering taking part in the consolidation of the sector in Europe expected to happen in the next two years, French daily Les Echos reported.
EasyJet Chief Executive Caroline McCall said the group could look at opportunities if they arrive although it was prioritizing organic growth. She added that Hungarian carrier Wizz Air was attracting a lot of interest at the moment but that its value was too expensive, the article noted.

FT : US banks ride high as executives make big M&A bets

US banks ride high as executives make big M&A bets
Fee pool for mergers and capital-raisings passes $60bn so far this year

America is on a knife-edge. Polls have been see-sawing, suggesting a range of possible outcomes from the presidential election next week.

But corporate executives are making big bets anyway. The past few days has seen a succession of large M&A deals, netting huge fees for the advisers involved, capping one of the busiest Octobers for global dealmaking on record.
“There’s an extremely strong desire among executives and boards to position their companies for the long term, that is outweighing the short-term instability linked with the current political cycle,” says Jeff Raich, co-president at Moelis & Co, the advisory boutique.
That is a big relief for Wall Street, because 2016 had been shaping up to be an unremarkable year in investment banking. In the first quarter, choppy markets caused clients to scrap plans to do deals or raise money, meaning that many banks have a lot of ground to make up if they want to hit their full-year targets for profit. Overall, the fee pool from advising companies on mergers and capital-raising comes to just over $60bn so far this year, according to Dealogic, down from $65.8bn at the same point last year.
Things would be a lot worse for the banks, though, were it not for that mini-boom in M&A.
On Monday, General Electric agreed to buy oil and gas services provider Baker Hughes in a $25bn deal, leading a trio of companies announcing big takeovers that lifted the total value of transactions attempted in October to more than $500bn.
On the same day, US telecoms group CenturyLink said it would buy larger Level 3, which provides infrastructure that allows business to connect to the internet safely, for $34bn including debt. And private equity group Blackstone said it would acquire TeamHealth, a US provider of physician services, for $6.1bn including debt.
On Dealogic figures, M&A accounts for 32 per cent of total fees from investment banking so far this year — the highest share since 2008, and well clear of the average 28 per cent over the past two decades.
M&A was already looking fairly solid before the fourth quarter began. On Tuesday afternoon JPMorgan Chase, a dominant force in various lines of investment-banking business, posted a 10-Q showing a year-on-year rise of 5 per cent in revenues from M&A advice over the first nine months, to $1.59bn. That offset a 23 per cent fall in revenues from equity underwriting (to $860m) and an 8 per cent drop in debt underwriting (to $2.36bn).
But advisers say the prospects look good for more deals in the rest of the year and beyond. Whoever wins the White House, the Senate or the House, they say, this is still a low-growth world; debt is still cheap and abundant; while the S&P 500 index remains within a few percentage points of its record high. So why not explore combinations to drive up profits for shareholders?
“Most balance sheets are in good shape, management teams have managed their businesses to highly credible levels of efficiency, and financing environments are supportive,” says Ray McGuire, Citigroup’s global head of corporate and investment banking.
Last week he sent a jubilant memo to his team in which he celebrated Citi’s second-best week ever, in terms of the value of deals it advised on. This week Citi has appeared in three of the big four, including TeamHealth’s $6.1bn acquisition by Blackstone, and Abraaj Group’s $1.8bn sale of a controlling stake in K-Electric of Pakistan.
“We’re executing on our strategy, encouraging people to stay close to clients and give the best unfiltered advice,” he says.
Boutiques such as Centerview, Allen & Co and Perella Weinberg are increasingly being hired to lead deals, as was the case in AT&T’s proposed $85.4bn acquisition of Time Warner announced last month. But large investment banks such as Goldman Sachs,Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan continue to dominate the league table in terms of deal volumes, number of transactions carried out and revenues.
The big losers so far have been bulge bracket European banks such as Deutsche Bank,UBS and Barclays, which have been retrenching their investment bank capabilities over the past few years.

One boutique riding high is Evercore Partners, rising to ninth spot by global M&A revenues so far this year, from 13th last year.
Evercore recently advised Qualcomm in its $47bn takeover of NXP, the largest European tech deal ever, and it advised the board of CenturyLink in its $34bn acquisition of rival internet network group Level 3.
Roger Altman, Evercore founder and executive chairman, says the conditions we see today are “most likely” to be in place six months from now, but cautions that financial markets are hard to predict. “As long as markets remain stable, at least in my judgment, we’re going to see strong volume,” he says.
Some worry that executives are not quite as chipper as market prices might suggest. Gregg Lemkau, co-head of global M&A at Goldman Sachs, says there is “a bit of a disconnect” between the level of the S&P and confidence within boardrooms. He says that could be because prices “feel driven more by monetary policy than pure fundamentals”.
Still, bankers say the pipelines look solid — Trump or no Trump.
“I think people have put their heads down and continued to move forward,” says Mr Lemkau. “Their attitude being: the administration will be what it will be and if our deal makes sense, let’s just try to get it done.”

Big banks bulk up in debt underwriting
Fixed income has been a tough line of business on Wall Street. Banks have gutted debt-trading desks in recent years to cut costs, while trimming the bonds they hold on their balance sheets in a bid to conserve capital, writes Eric Platt in New York.
But despite the shrinking size of trading floors, many of the largest banks have been investing in the business of underwriting sales of debt for corporate clients.
Revenues from debt capital markets businesses — known by the acronym DCM — climbed 4 per cent from a year earlier to $16.7bn in the first nine months of the year, according to data from Dealogic. DCM revenues accounted for more than 30 per cent of global investment banking fees in the first three quarters of the year, up from 26 per cent last year and 22 per cent five years ago.
Bankers say the recent surge in M&A activity could propel DCM divisions further in 2017, as acquirers replace bridge loans with long-term bonds. Low interest rates, too, should keep conditions buoyant.
“Nothing has upset the applecart,” says Jennifer Powers, head of Mizuho’s investment-grade DCM business. “The ‘long and low and slow’ [interest rate] mantra has conditioned our corporate clients to think about growth.”
Underwriting debt also offers an edge as banks shift to an agency model, matching up buyers and sellers of debt rather than holding big positions in the bonds themselves. A bank that sold Nike or UPS debt, for instance, has a better idea of who originally bought the bonds and might still own them. That is a help if they are on the hunt for those securities for a client’s trade.

Fast FT : Persimmon shrugs off Brexit fears as sales of new homes surge

Persimmon, the UK’s second-largest housebuilder, has reported a surge in trading over the past three months despite investor worries over the effects of the Brexit vote.
The FTSE 100 group’s private sales rate has been 19 per cent ahead of last year since August 23, it said, meaning it is now “fully sold up” for the current calendar year, writes Judith Evans.

The York-based group has about £757m of homes reserved beyond 2016, up 4 per cent from the same time last year, and plans to open a new brick factory near Doncaster in 2017.

The company said the market for new homes had gained from “resilient consumer confidence and strong lender support”, plus August’s interest rate cut. “Pricing remains firm across our regional markets,” the group said.

However, Persimmon said it was taking a “cautious” approach to new land investment given that “the uncertainty surrounding the potential impact of the EU Referendum result on the UK economy may continue for some time”. It acquired 7,580 new plots in the three months to November 1.

The group expects to improve in the second half of the year on the 23.8 per cent operating margin achieved in the six months to June, it said.

Shares in housebuilders, including Persimmon, dropped sharply following the UK’s vote to leave the EU; Persimmon was trading on Tuesday at prices still 17 per cent below their pre-referendum level.

>>> What to look at today - 2nd of November 2016

Dow -0.58% S&P -0.68% Nasdaq -0.69% Russell -1.12% VIX 18.50 +8.79% VXX 35.11 +2.87%
US Market closed lower pushed by political uncertainty. U.S. presidential race was also in focus today after a new joint poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post showed that Republican nominee Donald Trump is leading Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. ten sectors finished in negative territory. The heavily-weighted consumer discretionary (-0.8%) and the technology (-0.8%) sectors finished behind the broader market. AAPL -1.8%, after a UBS Survey indicated that demand in China remains weak. The stock has declined 5.7% since the company reported underwhelming quarterly results and guidance last Tuesday. commodity-sensitive energy space (+0.1%) eked out a slim gain as crude erased the bulk of an intraday loss, shedding 0.3% to $46.68/bbl. Volume were above average with more than 1bil shares traded. US After Hours EA +7%, OCLR +6%, PBPB +5.8% higher following earnings/guidance, HLS +6% S&P400 addition news... ADPT -50%, ZAGG -20%, DXCM -18%, X -9%, DATA -8% following earnings/guidance. Selloff in US equities has carried over into the overnight futures and Asian markets amid tightening of polls going into next Tuesday's US elections; Gold and Silver are up sharply, Vix was up for the 6th straight day to test 20 handle for the first time since early Sept, and Yen is stronger in the wake of overnight reluctance by BOJ to signal more intended easing. BOJ Gov Kuroda reiterated his view that the economy is continuing to recover gradually, adding there are more downside than upside risks but still expressing confidence of hitting 2% inflation target in FY18. JCER GDP estimate for Sept also registered its first monthly increase in 3 months.

Nikkei -1.76% Hang Seng -1.44% CSI -0.77% Shanghai -0.67%

Eur$ 1.1065 CNH 6.7748 CNY 6.7649 JPY 103.89 GBP 1.2235 CHF 0.9739 RUB 63.44 WTI$ 46.30 -0.79%

S&P -0.32% EuroStoxx -0.53% FTSE -0.42% Dax -0.53% SMI -0.59%

Macro :
- Clinton May Resist Calls to Break Up Large Banks: Capital Alpha
- French Car Market Slows Sharply in October, Les Echos Reports
- Hard Brexit Likely Given U.K., EU Politics, King’s Menon Says

Keep ane eye on :
- ABE SM : Abertis Teams Up With IFM for U.K. Toll Road Bid: Expansion
- AF FP : Air France’s Terner to Be Proposed as New CEO, La Tribune Says
- BARN SW : Barry Callebaut FY Ebit Misses, Sales Beat; Confirms Targets
- BKIA SM : Spain Puts Brakes on Bankia-BMN Merger, El Economista Says
- BBVA SM : BBVA Still Favored Over Santander at RBC After 3Q Results
- COM GY : Comdirect 3Q Profit Slumps 29%; NII Drops 12%; Commissions -12%
- CSGN VX : Credit Suisse’s China JV Starts Onshore Securities Trading: SCMP
- DANSKE DC : Cevian Capital II Master Fund Cuts Danske Bank Stake Below 5%
- DYN US : Dynegy 2017 Adj. Ebitda View Below Est.
- ESJ LN : Easyjet CEO Says Nissan Brexit Assurances Encouraging: Echos
- FIS1V FH : Fiskars 3Q Operating Result Turns Positive, Net Sales Fall
- BOSS GY : Hugo Boss 3Q Adjusted Ebitda Beats, Confirms 2016 Forecast -1.2%
- LHA GY : Lufthansa 2016 Capex to Fall by Later Delivery of Aircraft
- LUN DC : Lundbeck 3Q Rev., Ebit, Net Beat Ests., Raises 2016 Forecasts
- LUPE SS : Lundin Petroleum 3Q Earnings in Line With Ests.
- MHG NO : Marine Harvest 3Q Net Beats Estimates; Cuts 2016 Harvest Guiding
- MOR GY : MorphoSys, LEO Pharma Enter Alliance on Dermatology Antibodies
- NXT LN : Next 3Q Full-Price Sales Miss Estimates, Narrows FY Outlook
- NN NA : NN Reaffirms Intention to Make Public Offer for Delta Lloyd
- NYR BB : Nyrstar 3Q Adj. Ebitda Drops 43% to EU32m; Net Debt Up to EU766m
- OERL SW : Oerlikon 3Q Revenue, Order Intake Drop Y/y; Keeps FY Forecast
- PNL NA : Bpost Explores Friendly PostNL Approach: Board Yet to Decide
- PNL NA : PostNL Says ‘Unpleasantly Surprised’ by Bpost Report
- RR/ LN : Rolls-Royce Wins $700M Plane-Engine Order From China Southern
- SAN SM : Santander Revenue May Keep Suffering From Brexit: Bankhaus Lampe
- SYM GY : Symrise Maintains Outlook, to Sell Pinova Industrial Activities
- TEMN SM : Temenos to Buy Back Up to 1.6m Shares, Max. Amount of CHF99m
- VOLVB SS : Volvo’s Samuelsson Sees Sales Rising to 800,000 Units by 2020
- WKL NA : Wolters Kluwer 9-Mo. Adj. Operating Profit Up; Keeps FY Guidance

>>> Europe : Brokers Upgrade & Downgrade - 2nd of November 2016

>>> Up
*Britvic Raised to Neutral at JPMorgan
*BP Raised to Neutral at BofAML
*CRH Raised to Buy at Canaccord
*Lenzing Raised to Buy at Baader-Helvea, PT EU140
*REXEL RAISED TO BUY AT NATIXIS
*Ryanair Raised to Hold at HSBC, PT EU12
*Smiths Raised to Buy at HSBC, PT 1700p

>>> Down
*BNP Paribas Cut to Neutral at BofAML, PT EU56.50
*KAZ Minerals Cut to Hold at Peel Hunt, PT 275p
* Segro Cut to Neutral at Goldman

>>> PT Change


>>> Initiation
*Rockhopper Exploration Rated New Hold at Peel Hunt, PT 30p

>>> Call
>> Stock
*BNP REMOVED FROM EUROPE 1 LIST AT BOFAML
*Standard Chartered Removed From Berenberg Alpha List