In the FT vs Bloomberg stakes, it’s looking increasingly as though the score is 1-0 to the Brits: Bloomberg put out a follow-up article yesterday headlined “Gold Fields Takeover Interest Can’t Be Verified”, and today’s New York Times quotes Bloomberg editor in chief Matthew Winkler as saying that Bloomberg’s investigation of “Edward Pastorini,” the supposed bidder for Gold Fields, will continue.
But don’t count Bloomberg out quite yet. In an interesting factoid which the NYT doesn’t seem to have picked up on, Bloomberg is claiming that its information came not from “Pastorini” but from within Gold Fields itself. All very peculiar: Gold Fields is on the record as saying that it has received no such bid, but at the same time Gold Fields executives are leaking the details of the bid to Bloomberg? Something is very smelly here indeed.