City news: Innovia, McColl's, the Co-operative Group, London Stock Exchange Group
THE firm that makes the controversial new plastic £5 note has been bought by Canada’s CCL for 1.13billion Canadian dollars (£680million).
Cumbria-based Innovia, which has 1,200 employees worldwide, makes most of the polymer bank notes globally.
Its new £5 note for the Bank of England has attracted controversy after it was found to contain animal fat, drawing widespread criticism and sparking a 132,000-strong petition to ban the note.
The Bank said last month Innovia was looking at “potential solutions” to the issue and was “aware of some people’s concerns” about traces of the derivative, known as tallow.
Canadian group CCL Industries is buying Innovia from a consortium of private equity investors, managed by The Smithfield Group.
CCL said the deal would see it become a world leader in the fast-growing market for polymer notes. Innovia chief executive Mark Robertshaw said CCL would be “an excellent long-term owner”.
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McColl’s bags 300 Co-op shops
Convenience store chain McColl’s has won clearance from the competition watchdog for a “transformational” deal to buy nearly 300 outlets from the Co-operative Group.
The final clearance from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) comes after the acquisition was first announced in July and will see McColl’s add another 298 shops to its 1,000-strong convenience store estate.
Jonathan Miller, chief executive of McColl’s, said: “This is a transformational deal, which substantially accelerates our growth strategy and expands our neighbourhood presence.”
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Stock Exchange eyes LCH sale
The London Stock Exchange Group said it is looking to sell the French clearing arm of LCH to Euronext NV in a bid to drive through its £21billion tie-up with Deutsche Borse.
LSE Group said it was exploring the sale of LCH SA to the European exchanges operator as it looks to see off anti-trust concerns raised by the European Commission over the mega-merger.
However, it said there could be no certainty that the talks would lead to a transaction.
The move comes after the LSE Group announced it had received objections from the Commission over its proposed merger, but it reflected “a narrower scope of issues”.