Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic A scoop to start: H&E Equipment Services has accepted a bid from Herc Rentals of nearly $5.3bn, rebuffing an earlier takeover offer from equipment rental rival United Rentals, according to people briefed on the matter. Herc’s cash-and-stock bid values H&E at nearly $500mn more than United’s all-cash offer.And one event to start: The Business of Football Summit returns this month with industry leaders including Richard Masters, Lina Souloukou, Todd Boehly, Hillary Mandel, Stephen Pagliuca, Paraag Marathe, Steve Parish and more. As a DD subscriber, register for your complimentary digital pass here to watch the event online on February 26-27, or register here to join us in-person at The Peninsula Hotel in London.In today’s newsletter:Charlie Javice’s day in courtIt’s officially the United States vs Charlie Javice. But JPMorgan Chase will be the elephant in the courtroom.This week Javice, the young fintech entrepreneur charged with securities fraud over her financial aid start-up Frank, finally faces trial in a New York federal court as the FT’s Josh Franklin and DD’s Sujeet Indap have previewed.Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York say she and a fellow executive at her company faked data to show that Frank had millions of users rather than the few hundred thousand it actually had.JPMorgan bought Frank for $175mn in the frenzied summer of 2021. The bank eventually discovered that the millions of users it thought Frank had were in reality just a few hundred thousand users.As one JPMorgan executive said during the due diligence process on what it called Project Finland: “What we are buying is a team, a brand, an algorithm, which together and without millions of customer relationships would be worth a small fraction of the purchase price.” JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon later called the deal a “huge mistake”. But is it criminal fraud?Javice for her part says JPMorgan simply has a case of buyer’s remorse and she denies wrongdoing. She has gone on to accuse SDNY prosecutors of improperly relying on the bank to conduct its investigation (JPM has separately sued Javice for civil fraud).Either way: expect the trial to dig deep into how M&A gets done at the highest levels.Frank was backed by a handful of powerful players, including Marc Rowan of Apollo Global Management. Frank had hired the TMT banking powerhouse LionTree to run the 2021 auction. Now Javice has fancy defence lawyers at her table.JPMorgan wants justice, but it presumably also wants this entire episode to simply go away.What’s ahead for EQT’s new bossWhat would you do if you had €800mn worth of shares in a company? Retire? Sit on a terrace in Tuscany drinking bottles of Masseto?Alternatively, you could take on running one of the world’s biggest private equity firms, steering its pioneering renewable energy strategy through the climate-sceptic Trump administration.Per Franzén chose the latter. The incoming chief executive of €269bn alternative asset manager EQT will take over from incumbent Christian Sinding in May, the firm announced yesterday.Franzén currently heads the firm’s European and North American buyout operations and has doubled the business line’s assets under management to €113bn since 2019.The top job’s a big task. Franzén will have to navigate the Swedish business through the worsening geopolitical turbulence emanating from the country’s next-door-neighbour-but-one.The former Morgan Stanley associate has spent almost two decades at EQT, climbing his way up to become deputy managing partner.The incoming top dog led the firm’s €22bn fundraising of the biggest private equity fund to close globally in 2024 and has been involved in some of EQT’s biggest investments, including €15bn software group IFS and Europe’s largest vet group, IVC Evidensia.Likely at the top of the to-do list? Reinvigorating EQT’s share price.Climbing 56 per cent since the start of 2023 is, of course, nothing to be sniffed at. But this compares with 108, 153 and 192 per cent pole-vaults over the same period for US-listed peers Blackstone, Apollo and KKR respectively.Shares in EQT’s closest competitor CVC have risen 33 per cent since last May, a month after the Luxembourg-based group listed, while EQT’s climbed 22 per cent over the same period.Sinding, who also has about €800mn in shares, will continue to chair the firm’s investment forum and sit on various EQT fund investment committees.He will also chair the firm’s new global advisory council — which former Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg was supposed to join until he tore up his contract in order to become Norwegian finance minister.KKR vs Bain: KKR winsWhen activist fund 3D Investment Partners proposed that Japanese software group Fuji Soft go private, nobody expected it to kick off one of the biggest private equity fights the country had ever witnessed. Not only did the company adopt the sales process as its own, but it set KKR and Bain at each other’s throats. In August, KKR made a bid at ¥8,800 ($58) a share. Over the next two months, Bain Capital made an unbinding and then official counter-bid at up to ¥9,450 per share, forcing its rival to split its tender into two parts — but that was only the start of the byzantine tactics that would be deployed.Fuji Soft’s board rejected Bain’s higher offer, recommending KKR’s deal on the grounds of greater certainty. KKR went on to snap up more than a third of Fuji Soft’s shares, including a stake from US hedge fund Farallon Capital, creating a blocking stake.In Japan — where a bid without board approval is highly unusual — you may expect the story to end there.But the fireworks continued. Bain, with the support of Fuji Soft’s founding family, which is still a major shareholder, raised its offer again. In December, it bid ¥9,600 a share and said it would proceed with or without board support.Last month, tensions escalated when KKR urged Fuji Soft’s board to take legal action against Bain, alleging violations of a non-disclosure agreement.And this month, bids climbed even higher, with KKR bumping up its offer to ¥9,850 per share. After a duel that has been bruising for both firms in a market where out-and-out fighting and hostile bids are rare, the battle finally appears to be over.Bain said on Monday that it would withdraw from the bidding war, and hand victory to KKR.It’s a watershed moment for private equity in Japan.It also underscores how badly buyout groups feel the need to strike deals in the country. Many have raised large sums to deploy in Asia and are now largely avoiding China, the region’s biggest economy. Japan is one of relatively few good options, as a place where you can write large cheques. Yet for shareholders, it’s not a bad advert for US-style capitalism.KKR’s current offer is nearly 12 per cent higher than when the contest started. There is a lesson to be learned here, independent analyst Travis Lundy told the FT: “Sometimes it takes outside pressure.”Job movesLazard has appointed Klaus Hessberger as global co-head of its financial sponsors group based in London, DD has confirmed. Hessberger was previously at JPMorgan.London-based merchant bank Ocean Wall has hired Philip Griffith to work in sales and distribution. He previously held a variety of leadership roles in equity sales at Exane, Stifel Financial and Morgan Stanley.Smart readsSuccession drama The future of Rupert Murdoch’s empire hinges on a court battle which follows years of betrayals and family feuds that are revealed in more than 3,000 pages of documents, The New York Times reports.Regulatory reshuffle The chair of the UK’s competition regulator was told by phone he was to resign, after months of pressure from ministers who said it was not doing enough to support growth, the FT writes. Starmer’s government is now tightening the reins on the agency.Retreat from China Wall Street’s largest banks are scaling back investments and cutting jobs in China, after the expansion of investment-banking in the region has underperformed forecasts, Bloomberg reports.News round-upBAT boss in line for up to £18mn pay deal as UK looks to close gap with US (FT)UBS offers sabbatical perk to former Credit Suisse staff only (FT)European defence shares surge as investors bet on higher spending (FT)Saudi Arabia strikes $1bn deal with Leonard Blavatnik’s sports streaming business (FT)UniCredit threatens to walk away from Banco BPM deal (FT)Tesla braces for delay to China licence as Trump trade tensions mount (FT)US companies falling behind on loans at fastest pace in almost a decade (FT)Anglo American to get $600mn dividend boost ahead of demerger of platinum arm (FT)Treasury seeks clarity on cost of Thames Water renationalisation (FT)
