Newly floated so I have been watching this one. It did not need to raise cash and the company has performed well for its investors but the shares fell soon after the float. now they are rising again I'm tempted--anyone else bought some??

At what price for any offer would Blue Planet find it acceptable?

“We support the management’s restructuring proposal, which we believe will add value in the next 12 to 24 months, but if an offer is made in the meantime, we will consider it.”

http://www.dealmakerdaily.co.uk/news/item/27335.html

‘Even on most conservative basis, the think the minimum current value of New Star is around 20p per share but more realistically between 40-50p – plus it has the ability to shed costs.’

http://www.citywire.co.uk/Professional/-/news/investment-trusts/content.aspx?ID=323598&Page=1

DEALTALK-Quickfire New Star buy could bag a bargain

By Laurence Fletcher and Joel Dimmock
LONDON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - New Star Asset Management could find a buyer for
its business even before its investors vote on a debt-for-equity swap that will
see its banks take hold of the troubled fund manager.
Investors may find themselves asked to support a takeover thrashed out
over the Christmas break at a January shareholder meeting, sources close to New
Star said.
A deal may value the group at around 200 million pounds ($297.5 million),
or about 8 pence per share, said Jason Streets at Evolution Securities.
New Star's founder and Chief Executive John Duffield, a well-known figure
in London financial circles, is set to walk away once there is a deal with
creditor banks, according to a source close to the firm.
New Star, which took on debt last year to fund a payout to shareholders,
agreed a debt for equity swap with banks this month, whereby a syndicate owed
about 240 million pounds will end up owning some 75 percent of New Star.
On Tuesday, the company said it had received a number of expressions of
interest from others and that it might put itself up for sale or consider other
options for its future. UBS is advising the company.
Aberdeen Asset Management and unlisted Neptune Investment Management are
possible buyers. But Jupiter, another fund firm set up by Duffield, is not
looking at a bid for New Star, a source close to the company told Reuters.
Evolution's Streets said New Star could be worth 200 million pounds --
150 million for the UK mutual funds and 50 million for the hedge fund and
institutional arm.
New Star's shares have slumped from nearly 500 pence last May to about 2
pence on Friday. And on Thursday they temporarily suspended dealings in its 29
million pound Heart of Africa fund.
"The banks probably want to dispose of it as soon as they can and get
their cash back," said Gurjit Kambo at Numis.
New Star still has respectable assets under management of 13.9 billion
pounds, despite recent outflows.
Fund firms may sell for more than 5 percent of assets under management at
the top of the equity markets, but bear markets can throw up real bargains.
Insight Investment bought Rothschild Asset Management in December 2002,
near the trough of the last bear market, for a mere 0.6 percent of assets -- a
move that later looked shrewd given the upturn in markets in March 2003.
Aberdeen, which in January sounded wary of big acquisitions, has altered
its tone as market conditions have changed and would not rule itself out of the
running for New Star.
"In this market environment we view Aberdeen as a consolidator rather
than being consolidated," a spokesman said.
Neptune has indicated its interest in part or all of New Star, although
with a war chest of just 10 million pounds it may only be in a position to take
part of the assets.
A management buyout may be unlikely given limited access to debt in
current markets and the lack of synergies in any management-backed deal.

Massive buy and massive premium on this buy, just come through on PLUS:-

05/01/2009 08:23:37 3.50 289,944 O 10,139.30

http://www.plusmarketsgroup.com/data.shtml?ISIN=GB00B1VJF742/GBX/PLUS-exn

Someone has just bought 289K shares at 3.50p??? 1p premium!

Hmmm volume only showing 87k @8:29

On PLUS:-962K in volume

http://www.plusmarketsgroup.com/data.shtml?ISIN=GB00B1VJF742/GBX/PLUS-exn

Looking v.good courtesy of the v.large buy at 3.50p earlier and strong buying volume reported on PLUS.

In Auction at 2.80p.

sounds ok to me ,so i bought in at 2.77

2.48m Volume on PLUS and 958K on LSE already. Large volume possibly because of Aberdeen Asset confirming their wish to vacuum up in the sector even after the Credit Suisse buy. There were some interesting comments from Mr Gilbert in the Times snippet on Saturday.

From The Times
January 1, 2009

Aberdeen comes out from under a cloud

'In a sector that is expected to consolidate rapidly this year, Mr Gilbert says Aberdeen stands ready to make further acquisitions'.

'Mr Gilbert may even salvage something out of the mess at New Star Asset Management, John Duffield's stricken manager'.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5426090.ece

Aberdeen still possibly interested in New Star even after Credit Suisse acquisition:-

He declined to be drawn on any specific targets, but Aberdeen is thought to remain interested in New Star, the struggling manager being sold by UBS on behalf of a five-strong bank syndicate that took control this month. New Star, which would give Aberdeen about £12billion of additional funds, including retail investments to manage, is expected to fetch a maximum of £115million. “The only thing we won't take on is debt,” Mr Gilbert said.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/movers_and_shakers/article5425507.ece

All buys being reported on PLUS and sizeable buys of 100K + 150K blocks of which many reported.

I said it was coming....1.75 million BUY at 2.61p just put through by DUET

Potential Bidders:-

'In such circumstances potential bidders will I think start to be attracted to the firm, leading potentially to a sale in short order. Aberdeen chief executive Martin Gilbert ruled out a wholesale purchase this week of New Star but only because of its debt, with this resolved he may well be interested again. Simliarly Hendersons could spot an opportunity. Citywire also revealed yesterday that Neptune Investment Management is actively looking at acquiring some of the funds and assets. I would personally not rule out a purchase by other protagonists in financial services M&A. Resolution boss Clive Cowdery is on the hunt for assets again and his old adversary Hugh Osmond has access to plenty of capital at Pearl to boost his presence in the retail fund management arena'.

http://www.citywire.co.uk/adviser/-/blogs/investment-solutions/content.aspx?ID=322843

Marlborough buys main stake in Apollo

Story by: Nick Rice Magazine:

InvestmentAdviser Published Monday , January 05, 2009

Marlborough revealed it has bought a controlling stake in Guernsey-based Apollo Investment Management as the asset management industry moves further towards greater consolidation.

The investment house confirmed its decision in the week GLG Partners bought SociGale Asset Management UK. Bidders are also circling New Star Asset Management.

http://ftadviser.com/InvestmentAdviser/Investments/News/article/20090105/555defc4-d04d-11dd-ad95-00144f2af8e8/Marlborough-buys-main-stake-in-Apollo.jsp

"Bidders are also circling New Star Asset Management"

Sector also seems to be heavily in focus now which will hopefully result in the highest price possible for any offer on New Star.

Wasn't aware of this but Aberdeen were prepared to pay a substantial premium back in March 2008...if as quoted there are more than 10 bidders for New Star now, Abderdeen may snuff them out by going much higher again than the quoted bid figure of 8p.

Contributed by: Martinas B.
Date: 19 Mar, 2008
It was supposed to be the AIM-traded company. Nevertheless, today our attention has New Star Asset Management, which is actually traded on FTSE. Let's see what we've got here...

Three days ago funds firm New Star Asset Management has rejected a takeover bid from money manager Aberdeen Asset Management.

According to the Mail on Sunday newspaper's report, Aberdeen offered 200p per share for New Star, valuing the fund manager at around 470 million pounds.

That's a substantial premium to the closing share price of today's trading price - 85.00p.

Other groups thought to be interested in New Star include private equity groups Candover, JC Flowers and Hellman & Friedman, which already owns rival investment group Gartmore and could achieve cost savings from merging the two, the paper said.

http://uk.hotstocked.com/article/0563/is-new-star-asset-management-nsam-l-still-shining.html

1 million Vol. on PLUS and 100K blocks buys continuing to come through on PLUS after the numerous ones yesterday.

http://www.plusmarketsgroup.com/data.shtml?ISIN=GB00B1VJF742/GBX/PLUS-exn

Someone just posted this on iii:-

'with the 260m debt swopped for equity there are 1000m shares issued. NSAM is still a premium brand and worth say 1.5% of FUM of 14bn = 210m, less 95m pref shares = 115m or 11.5 pence per share'.

From iii: in response to earlier post from there.

We've done some similar calculations and are looking for 11p to 15.5p.....
Not long to wait now!!

I had a target of 6-8p for any bid, calcs. on iii suggests anywhere from 10-18.5p.

2% FUM = 18.5p on same basis.

Another very large buy for 1.46 million shares at 2.57p. Going with the 1.75 million buy at 2.61p yesterday.

A deadline of 12 January was muted a few weeks ago:-

New Star bankers hoping for bids by 12 January
By Charlie Parker | 14:06:26 | 17 December 2008

http://www.citywire.co.uk/adviser/-/blogs/investment-solutions/content.aspx?ID=324242

Just working this out:-

DEALTALK-Quickfire New Star buy could bag a bargain

By Laurence Fletcher and Joel Dimmock
LONDON, Dec 10 (Reuters) - New Star Asset Management could find a buyer for its business even before its investors vote on a debt-for-equity swap that will see its banks take hold of the troubled fund manager.
Investors may find themselves asked to support a takeover thrashed out
over the Christmas break at a January shareholder meeting, sources close to New
Star said.
A deal may value the group at around 200 million pounds ($297.5 million),
or about 8 pence per share, said Jason Streets at Evolution Securities.

Just found the below....would this mean any offer then would be well north of the above quoted 8p??? Only got this range of 8-20p at the moment, the 20p being quoted by Blue Planet.

It has also said that it has received approaches that could be considered as alternatives to the debt-for-equity swap agreed with its creditors last week.

'A sale of the business has been considered inevitable since it announced last week that it was to hand 75% of its share capital to a syndicate of banks in exchange for writing off 240 million of debt. However, it had been thought likely that a sale would only be possible once the restructuring was in place'.

'The announcement today appears to imply offers have been made which could see it sold before the debt was converted into equity. Such a move would please New Star executive chairman John Duffield (pictured) and the firm's fund manager shareholders who were seeing their shareholding virtually wiped out by the deal'.

http://www.citywire.co.uk/adviser/-/news/market-and-shares/content.aspx?ID=323439

Consolidation over and price breaking out with further gains. 2.68-2.94p.

New Star to benefit from FSA changes to fund suspension rules
By Drazen Jorgic | 09:00:00 | 07 January 2009



New Star Asset Management is set to benefit from changes to FSA rules which will allow firms to suspend dealings in funds for indefinite periods.

Under the old rules, any fund manager which suspended dealing in its fund had within 28 days to re-open it, or speak to the FSA about an extension.

From Tuesday this rule no longer applied, meaning the fund manager could technically suspend the fund indefinitely.

In practice the fund managers will have within 28 days to review the suspension and then report back to the FSA.

The FSA amended the rules because it deemed the 28-day requirement to be detrimental to the fund managers efforts to liquidate the assets at a reasonable value within this time limit.

During 2008 several funds, primarily those in the property sector, imposed temporary suspensions, many of which were given extensions. New Star's International Property fund, for example, was suspended on November 25 and is still closed for dealing.

Another New Star fund, Jamie Allsopps Heart of Africa, was nearing its 28-day deadline after it suspended dealings on December 11 but will now not be under any pressure to re-open this week.

New Star said it plans to re-open Allsopps (pictured above) fund but is unable to do so while the Sub-Saharan market remains illiquid.

A spokesperson for the FSA commented: 'We reviewed this requirement and concluded that there was no benefit to unit holders in imposing an arbitrary 28-day limit on the duration of any period of suspension, as this does not prevent the AFM (Authorised Fund Manager) immediately beginning another period of suspension if it is in the best interests of unitholders.'

Unit holder interests can be adequately protected by permitting an indefinite period of suspension, provided the reason for the suspension is regularly reviewed.

http://www.citywire.co.uk/professional/-/news/fund-news/content.aspx?ID=325304&Page=1