Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The Stock Movers Report, your roundup of companies making moves
Speaker 2: in the stock market, harnessing the power of Bloomberg Data.
Speaker 1: Now, let's take a look at some stocks on the
Speaker 1: move today in Europe. I'm Stephen Carroll and I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Bloomberg reporter Chloye Melee chloy Good morning. Let's start
Speaker 1: with a big move in Universal Music Groups shares, some
Speaker 1: m and a related news this morning. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, We've got Bill Ackman making an offer, major bid
Speaker 3: for Universal Music Group, which is the world's largest music label.
Speaker 3: Of course, so Bill Ackman's investment company, Pashing Square has
Speaker 3: proposed a combination with Universal, which would evalue it at
Speaker 3: a seventy eight percent premium to the last closing price.
Speaker 3: So quite a big deal, and it's quite a complex
Speaker 3: a deal structure as well. Universal would essentially merge with
Speaker 3: a blank check company set up by Akman and then
Speaker 3: shift its listing from Abstem to New York. And so
Speaker 3: Persian Square already own about four point five percent of Universal,
Speaker 3: and he had already been pushing for a US listing,
Speaker 3: and it's said that a deal would kind of shake
Speaker 3: up the label and boost the share price that has
Speaker 3: been really weak lately. There's a few challenges, a few
Speaker 3: hurdles to this potential deal actually happening. The main one
Speaker 3: get in being getting the approval of some important shareholders.
Speaker 3: So the two main ones to look out for are
Speaker 3: the Chinese company Tencent, but then particularly the French media
Speaker 3: billionaire Vason Bouleoret, who is who owns a really large
Speaker 3: part of that company, and some analysts are saying that
Speaker 3: unless Boloret supports the deal, it's going to be a
Speaker 3: dead end, and some are questioning whether he would actually
Speaker 3: accept those terms. So there's definitely going to be something
Speaker 3: that will be keeping an eye on as it goes through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and certainly, I mean such a massive player in
Speaker 1: the music industry as well of great interest. We were
Speaker 1: having a game earlier so we could guess how many
Speaker 1: universal music artists we actually knew, and it seems to
Speaker 1: be almost everyone that you can pick of is short.
Speaker 1: The shortlist of that turning next to ASML chloy a
Speaker 1: crackdown on chip tool sales being in focus for their investors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so SML is reacting this morning to some news
Speaker 3: that we've got essentially before the Easter weekend, which is
Speaker 3: their US lawmakers are proposing a crackdown on sales of
Speaker 3: chip making tools to China. So the bill would basically
Speaker 3: strengthen existing restrictions on exports of equipment to China, including
Speaker 3: banning engineers from maintaining and repairing tools at some facilities
Speaker 3: in the country, and the bill is putting special emphasis
Speaker 3: on exports from allies, so including Japan and the Netherlands,
Speaker 3: and so it would directly concern asml Buebook Attentals is
Speaker 3: saying that the current controls have already cut demand and
Speaker 3: that further restrictions may actually not have much of an
Speaker 3: additional impact. But then some analysts are saying otherwise. For example,
Speaker 3: City analysts saying that there might be some significant unintended
Speaker 3: consequences with those new export controls. So the market is
Speaker 3: still trying to figure out exactly what the impact might be.
Speaker 3: But in the meantime, SML shares are down quite a bit,
Speaker 3: and this really is going to be interested when they
Speaker 3: report their first quarter results next week.
Speaker 1: Yes, indeed, and turning to the defense sector now, we're
Speaker 1: also watching Leonardo shares this week as we have an
Speaker 1: announcement on the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Italy should be naming a replacement for Leonardo's CEO
Speaker 3: this week, so the decision is coming at an interesting
Speaker 3: time for Italy. So the government is finalizing appointments at
Speaker 3: some major state linked companies and it's coming at the
Speaker 3: same time as it suffered quite a big defeat in
Speaker 3: a referendum about reforming the justice system. So that defeat
Speaker 3: has prompted Georgia Maloney to implement changes in order to
Speaker 3: sort of protect a sense of control and power. And
Speaker 3: so there will reports over the weekend that the Curren
Speaker 3: CEO of Leonardo was likely to be replaced. This is
Speaker 3: part of a broader move to changing boards at some
Speaker 3: state controlled companies and that really allows the government to
Speaker 3: reshape leadership at some of those really important firms. And
Speaker 3: the reaction from the market has been quite negative this
Speaker 3: morning about this this CEO change coming this week, and
Speaker 3: shares were definitely in the red f Leonardo.
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