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Investors are betting that the FTSE 100 gambling giant behind Paddy Power and Betfair will succeed in merging with Stars Group – the Canadian owner of Sky Bet – in a £10billion deal. Hedge funds have placed bets of £250million in recent days against Flutter Entertainment in an effort to cash in on its all-share deal. Short positions in Flutter – which has a market value of £5.9billion – have surged to an all-time high and now represent nearly 5 per cent of the company's shares, according to the Financial Conduct Authority. This is up from just 0.59 per cent three weeks ago. Bet on success: Investors are betting that the FTSE 100 gambling giant behind Paddy Power and Betfair will succeed in merging with Stars Group +1 Bet on success: Investors are betting that the FTSE 100 gambling giant behind Paddy Power and Betfair will succeed in merging with Stars Group Short-selling experts told The Mail on Sunday their bets were what is known as 'merger arbitrage', where hedge funds look to profit from mergers through complex trading tactics. As Flutter investors will own 55 per cent of the enlarged group, it is technically the buyer in the transaction. In an all-share merger, hedge funds typically buy shares of the company being taken over while shorting shares of the acquiring company – in this case Flutter – if they think the deal will go through. RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next Paddy Power owner Flutter sees share price jump as it gears... De Beers' diamond sales down by almost 40% in the latest... STOCK WATCH: GVC's Alexander may have one more great deal in... William Hill blames Government crackdown for a near halving... SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Analysts have speculated about whether GVC, the deal-hungry owner of Ladbrokes and Coral, could launch a counter-bid. They have also suggested Flutter could face demands from competition authorities to offload other parts of its business to get the Stars deal over the line. However, the short-selling spree suggests investors are predicting that the deal will go through.

Now called flutter.. involved in merger / take over of star group ( USA ) no pages on this name or any former names or this on II

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I think the share price curve is steepening downward at DC. Reasons in my view are; imminent recession in the UK; sterling near historic lows - all imported product more expensive, squeezing profits for DC; ex-chairman and founder has sold a quarter of his holding recently (a bad sign); big pension deficit; as far as I can see, practically no cash - the business seems to be operating on cashflow which relies on suppliers waiting a long time to be paid; increasing online competition; a massive and costly bricks&mortar estate; a huge workforce creating high operational costs; very few customers in the shops whenever I've visited; warning from the management of 'more pain' to come due to the change in smartphone purchasing dynamics. From what I can see, there are practically no positives for DC; an outdated business model with huge legacy costs.

Where is the 'substantial' news ?

I web message they have called in administration .

Kier sold one property in London yesterday and made £25m, enough to reduce group net debt from £167m to £142m, which is very low for a company with current turnover of £4.5bn. Order book is strong with £9.4bn in projects of which 90% are secured and probable. In addition to that, there's a logjam of projects waiting in the wings due to brexit uncertainty (so industry analysts say). Once that gets unclogged, Kier is likely to grow massively. But the firm doesn't need to grow for the share price to perform. It only needs to show debt reducing, and that's being accomplished by asset sales, small and large, and retaining the dividend which has been over £60m a year recently. If anyone here wants to know what Kier is doing in terms of growth and business strategy, all the answers are easy to find. Just take a look at the preliminary results on the investor results page of the company's website and if you want to hear the analysts grilling the CEO, there's a webcast too. Also, Andrew Davies has just put out a youtube video aimed at Kier staff, in which he discusses the direction of the business and the share price. Not hard to find. Dyor.

The share price is a stone cold bargain. Either it goes to £6 or the firm gets a speculative bid from a buyer. I don't see it staying at £1.20 for much longer. A lot of the promises from government involve infrastructure spending (hospitals, schools) and its record this yr, when business is supposed to be hamstrung by brexit, is that its beating all of the other construction firms and is having a good year. Andrew Davies essentially smashed the results down this year with massive paper writedowns and provisions and the next H1 results will show him as a massive success.

No. The business has more than enough cash; Kier is using only half of its available credit line; its paying suppliers almost twice as quickly as it was six months ago; and its retaining £60m+ in dividend cash that it would have paid out to shareholders. In terms of 'downsizing' it's only a reduction of about 10% of turnover. Kier Living (the residential housebuilding division) turned over about £400m out of the firm's total £4.5bn turnover last yr. The most amazing thing about all of this is that Kier Living is for sale at around £160m (with four or five 'very engaged buyers') but the total market cap of the whole £4.5bn business as it stands today is about £180m. Kier is hugely undervalued; the major part (the construction firm) is effectively valued at about £25m for a business which is the second largest regional construction business, turns over £4bn+ (yes, billions) with underlying annual profits of £100m+, and has been growing organically this year through winning more contract work by value than any other construction firm. Workforce has grown by over 10% by my reckoning. Last yr was 18,000, this year over 20,000.