Hong Kong firm buys Aquascutum in $24 mn deal

Luxury clothing brand Aquascutum is sold to a subsidiary of YGM Trading, which already owns the rights to the brand in Asia.

YGM Trading entered exclusive talks for the potential acquisition of U.K. luxury clothing brand Aquascutum.

One manager, Frank Holmes, left Canada more than two decades back and ended up becoming the chief executive and chief executive of San Antonio-based U.S. Global Advisors Inc., a public company that manages about US$1.7-billion of assets, much of which are invested in resources and emerging markets.

Citic Securities, China's top brokerage firm, will buy CLSA from Credit Agricole SA of France for $1.25 billion, in the latest move by a Chinese company to acquire assets of troubled European firms.State-owned Citic Securities completed the acquisition of 19.9 percent of the Hong Kong-based brokerage for $310.3 million, the company said in a statement filed with the Shanghai stock exchange on Saturday.Citic Securities aims to take the remaining 80.1 percent in CLSA for $941.7 million by the end of June next year pending regulatory and shareholder approvals, it said.

Sports and fashion chain Sports Direct (LON:SPD) has agreed a deal with Sir Tom Hunter that will see it take an 80% stake in the retail entrepreneur’s USC and Cruise Clothing operations in a cash deal worth £7.0 million. USC currently has 38 stores across the UK and turnover in the 12 months to 30 January 2011 was £70.0 million. Cruise has 10 stores in the UK and an annual turnover of around £20 million.

Global commodities merchant Castleton Commodities International LLC, owned in part by billionaire investors Glenn Dubin and Paul Tudor Jones, said on Tuesday it has acquired oil and gas assets in Colorado and Utah in a bid to build out its physical natural gas business. The firm acquired 180 oil and gas wells, 150,000 net acres in mineral leases, a gas processing facility and a 262-mile gas gathering system from Houston-based Patara Oil & Gas, it said in a press release.

GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland's biggest watch maker, Swatch Group AG, says it has agreed to pay about $1 billion to acquire Canada's Harry Winston watch and jewelry brand. The Biel, Switzerland-based company says it will pay $750 million to acquire the brand from Toronto-based Harry Winston Diamond Corp. and will also assume as much as $250 million in debt. The acquisition includes the Harry Winston production company in Geneva and more than 500 employees globally.