Company Updates - AV Aviva has acquired Probitas for £242m, granting it access to the Lloyd's market for the first time in over 20 years; and posted a strong set of results for 2023.
Firm Returns Weekly - Aviva to acquire Optiom, David Zaslav interview, Arkham trilogy switch release Aviva to acquire Optiom On Monday (27 Nov), Aviva announced the acquisition of Optiom O2 Holdings Inc - a leading provider of vehicle replacement insurance in Canada - for total consideration of c.£100m (c.CAD$170m). This should bolster Aviva's existing Canadian operations, and move them closer
Firm Returns Weekly - tinyBuild (TBLD), Warner Bros Discovery (WBD), Aviva (AV), and Fuller, Smith & Turner (FSTA) tinyBuild Broken Roads release delay Broken roads was scheduled to release on 14 November, but on the 8th they announced it would be delayed until early next year. There was still some confusion because they forgot to change the release date on Steam, which resulted in the game appearing in
Firm Returns Weekly - AV, TMI, WBD Aviva Takeover rumours Aviva has been subject to some takeover rumours that sent the share price up to over 420p earlier this month (the shares have since come back down to below 400p). The following excerpt from a Shares Magazine article lists some of the companies said to be considering
Firm Returns Weekly - AV, WBD, TMI, TBLD Aviva Aviva is acquiring AIG's UK protection business for total consideration of £460m, in line with their strategy of pursuing capital light growth. AIG's UK protection business had 1.3m individual protection customers and 1.4m group protection customers as of 31 December 2022. Aviva to
Firm Returns Weekly - WBD, TBLD, AV Warner Bros. Discovery Webcasts There are a couple of new webcast recordings available on the WBD website, with commentary from both David Zaslav (CEO) and Gunnar Weidenfels (CFO). Warner Bros. Discovery - Events & PresentationsWarner Bros. Discovery, Inc. Logo The Nun II The Nun II made $32.6m in its
Firm Returns Weekly - TBLD, ECOR, AV, WBD tinyBuild We're expecting tinyBuild's interim results soon, so there should be a fair amount to discuss when they're released. In the meantime, I wanted to share a couple of articles I read this week that could be useful for anyone trying to gauge a
Firm Returns Weekly - AV, TBLD Aviva This week, Aviva released their interim results for the first half of 2023. Here are some highlights: Group Level * Operating profit up 8% to £715m (1H22: £661m). On a per share basis, this rises to 10% due to share buybacks (19.9p vs 18.1p). * Cash remittances (the money
Firm Returns Weekly - WBD, TBLD, AV Warner Bros. Discovery Films Barbie has continued its upward trajectory with another week at the top of the charts. Here in the UK it is still the film with the most showings in cinemas, and when I went to see the Meg 2 on Wednesday, there was a crowd of
Firm Returns Weekly - WBD, TBLD, FSTA, ECOR, AV This week's newsletter is a little late because I was travelling to attend a wedding over the weekend, but there's quite a lot to discuss. Warner Bros. Discovery Barbie update Barbie continues to perform very well, and has now exceeded $1bn in worldwide box office revenue.
Aviva Research Report This UK listed insurer currently trades at a discount to its book value and at an attractive multiple of its average cash flows of the last 15 years. Recent market volatility and the impact of divestments have clouded the numbers despite continuing strong performance from its business operations. This has