Electric Business

XL Group has agreed a £2.7bn deal to acquire the global insurer and reinsurer Catlin Group. XL, established in 1986, is an insurance and reinsurance business which specialises in property, casualty and speciality products. Catlin, established in 1999, has over 50 offices in 25 countries worldwide. The acquisition will make XL one of the world’s largest underwriters in lines such as aerospace, fine art, political risk and crisis management.

Thetrainline.com has announced its intention to float on the London stock market. The company is the market leader in the online rail ticket market in the UK and is hoping to expand its presence in the rest of Europe. Thetrainline.com has been owned by the private equity firm Exponent since 2006.

Tesco has revealed its plans for the revitalisation of its business. These include closing the company’s Cheshunt head office and making Welwyn Garden City the group's base, closing 43 unprofitable stores, scrapping plans for 49 new stores and closing the company defined benefit pension scheme. In addition Tesco will not pay a final dividend to its shareholders in 2014/15 and is to explore options for the sale of its dunnhumby data business.

Circle Holdings is to pull out of its franchise to operate Hinchingbrooke Health Care NHS Trust in Cambridgeshire, saying that ‘operating the franchise is no longer viable under current terms’. Circle took on the 10-year franchise in 2012 and has the right to terminate it if it needs to make support payments to Hinchingbrooke in excess of £5m. Circle has so far made payments totalling £4.84m. Under the contract, Circle could be required to make a final support payment of £160,000 to Hinchingbrooke. Circle blames the situation on ‘unprecedented increases in accident and emergency attendances

Charter Court Financial Services has been granted a licence to launch a new challenger bank in the UK. Charter Savings Bank will be an online and telephone-based operation offering competitive rates across easy access, notice and fixed rate savings accounts. The new bank is covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which guarantees eligible customers’ deposits up to £85,000. Paul Whitlock, formerly director of savings at Shawbrook Bank, has been appointed director of savings at Charter Savings Bank. Whitlock says “We will bring competitive rates and excellent, reliable service to

The private equity firm Alchemy has taken a majority stake in Incisive Media, a provider of industry information in the form of databases, events, research, consultancy services and publications such as Legal Week, Accountancy Age and Computing.

Rentokil Initial has bought Peter Cox Property Care. Established in 1951, Peter Cox specialises in property preservation. The deal is part of Rentokil’s strategy of buying businesses in higher growth markets.

Tesco has strengthened its balance sheet with the sale of blinkbox and Tesco Broadband to TalkTalk. blinkbox, a movie and TV site offering online streaming services, will be integrated into TalkTalk’s existing TV business. TalkTalk is to use the acquisition to offer new services such as a TV app for use across a range of devices. Tesco Broadband provides services to around 95,000 households, who will transfer to the TalkTalk network in the next few months.

Johnson Service Group is to close 109 unprofitable dry cleaning shops during the first half of 2015. The company says that the high street dry cleaning industry continues to operate in a difficult environment and Johnson’s strategy is to develop alternative, more convenient collection and delivery locations, notably in partnership with Waitrose. There are currently 78 Waitrose stores offering a Johnson’s dry cleaning service with another 46 planned for the first quarter of this year. The remaining 198 better performing standalone dry cleaning branches are in more convenient locations with an

8over8 has been acquired by AVEVA, a provider of engineering IT software to the plant, power and marine industries. 8over8 is headquartered in Northern Ireland and develops risk management software which aims to reduce the risk of project cost and schedule overruns.