It’s been a busy day of buying and selling for some of the big players today.
We start with the news that Tesco PLC (LON:TSCO) has sold its garden centre chain Dobbies as the retailer continues to slim down in an effort to revitalise its sales.
Dobbies has been sold to a group of investors led by Midlothian Capital Partners and Hattington Capital for £217mln.
Today’s news comes after Tesco sold its Giraffe restaurant chain and its Turkish business last week.
Tesco bought Dobbies back in 2007 for around £150mln, and author Ian Fraser reckons today's deal is a good one for the UK supermarket giant…
@BBCDouglasF haven't studied figs in detail but given Tesco paid £156m for Dobbies at peak credit bubble in Jun'07, not a bad deal for Tesco
— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) June 17, 2016
Moving on from a sale to an acquisition now, as Revlon Inc (NYSE:REV) has agreed a deal to buy fellow cosmetics firm Elizabeth Arden, Inc. (NASDAQ:RDEN) for US$870mln (£609mln).
The veteran cosmetics firm will pay $US14 per share for Elizabeth Arden which represents a 50% premium to the luxury skincare brand’s closing price of US$9.31 yesterday.
Revlon has said that it expects the combined company to have sales of around US$3bln.
It hopes the deal will help to expand its global footprint and benefit from Elizabeth Arden’s presence in fast-growing markets such as Asia-Pacific.
In other news, one of the largest diamonds ever to come out of Russia has just been found AK Alrosa PAO’s (MCX:ALRS) Nyurbinsly open pit mine.
Alrosa – the world’s biggest diamond producer by volume – describes the 241 carat stone as ‘translucent with a grey hue’.
The find is one of a number of sizeable to be recovered in recent years.
The 1,111 carat Lesedi La Rona – discovered at Lucara Diamond Corp’s (TSE:LUC) Karowe mine in Botswana – goes on sale in a couple of weeks, with some experts estimating that it could sell for in excess of £50mln.
And finally, HSBC (LON:HSBC) has drawn a line under its 14-year legal battle with former Household International shareholders.
The lawsuit alleged that executives of Householder International – acquired by the bank in 2003 – misled investors by hiding its bad lending practices.
HSBC reached a deal that will see it pay a record US$1.6bln to resolve the lawsuit shortly before a second jury trial was due to get underway in Chicago.