{"id":8994,"date":"2012-03-16T15:15:24","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T13:15:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/03\/update-2-seymour-pierce-in-talks-with-potential-investors\/"},"modified":"2012-03-16T15:15:24","modified_gmt":"2012-03-16T13:15:24","slug":"update-2-seymour-pierce-in-talks-with-potential-investors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-2-seymour-pierce-in-talks-with-potential-investors\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 2-Seymour Pierce in talks with potential investors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Seymour Pierce declines to comment<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Potential investors are from overseas &#8211; source<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Tough conditions spurring consolidation among UK brokers<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>LONDON, March 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Seymour Pierce, a British<br \/>\ninvestment bank which recently ended merger talks, is in talks<br \/>\nwith several potential investors, a source with knowledge of the<br \/>\nmatter said, as tough market conditions spur consolidation among<br \/>\nsmaller stockbrokers.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are holding discussions with a number of potential<br \/>\nstrategic investors,&#8221; the source said on Friday, adding they<br \/>\nwere from overseas.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Seymour Pierce, owned by its staff following a management<br \/>\nbuyout in 2003, declined to comment on the matter.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>While Seymour Pierce had ended 40 million pound ($63<br \/>\nmillion) merger talks with Bermudan reinsurer Gerova Financial<br \/>\nGroup, it has still been seen as a possible bid target<br \/>\n&#8211; other small investment banks have been taken over in the tough<br \/>\nclimate.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Investment banks have seen less business come through in the<br \/>\nway of flotations or mergers and takeovers due to the global<br \/>\neconomic weakness, and smaller ones have found it harder to deal<br \/>\nwith increasing regulatory costs than bigger rivals.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The big question for the industry is how it will<br \/>\nconsistently generate a return on equity above the average cost<br \/>\nof capital. This is a very tough ask in the current environment<br \/>\nand the challenge for management will be to continue driving<br \/>\ndown costs to match reduced revenue levels,&#8221; said Bill Michael,<br \/>\nhead of UK financial services, at accountancy firm KPMG.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Seymour Pierce declines to comment * Potential investors are from overseas &#8211; source * Tough conditions spurring consolidation among UK brokers LONDON, March 16 (Reuters) &#8211; Seymour Pierce, a British investment bank which recently ended merger talks, is in talks with several potential investors, a source with knowledge of the matter said, as tough [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-8994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}