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Category Archives: M&A
How M&A is Getting Less Lucrative for Wall Street
The M&A industry is struggling, now that financial buyers (private-equity shops) can’t snap up companies willy-nilly using cheap debt. On the other hand, if this morning’s news is anything to go buy, friendly strategic deals using equity rather than debt … Continue reading
Adolphus Busch Endorses InBev Takeover
Sam Jones has the letter from Adolphus Busch IV in which he comes out in favor of the takeover by InBev, at InBev’s price of $65 a share. Adolphus Busch IV, of course, isn’t as important as Augustus Busch IV, … Continue reading
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Expanding Santander
Europe has too many banks. Now that it has a single currency, the fact that each country is dominated by its own national banks is looking increasingly old-fashioned. And so it makes sense that, sooner or later, a genuinely European … Continue reading
The End of the Line for the Busch Family
That August Anheuser Busch IV is the CEO of Anheuser Busch is a feat of nepotism which makes the government of Singapore look like Goldman Sachs. Andrew Ross Sorkin rehearses the facts: By college, his transgressions went well beyond youthful … Continue reading
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Bud Can’t Block InBev With Modelo
This is weird: the WSJ is running a story headlined "Without Modelo Aid, Bud Isn’t Likely to Parry InBev". The number of times that Grupo Modelo or any of its properties are mentioned in the story? Zero. Elsewhere, the WSJ … Continue reading
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Why is InBev’s Letter Public Already?
Yesterday, June 11, InBev CEO Carlos Brito sent a letter to his counterpart at Anheuser-Busch, August Busch IV. It explained why a merger of the two companies was a great idea, and concluded: It is our current intention to keep … Continue reading
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Who Might Buy Lehman?
Peter Eavis and David Reilly are thinking along the same lines as me: Lehman Brothers should be sold. But then we part company, for the WSJ writers’ shortlist of potential acquirers is deficient in the only think which matters right … Continue reading
Kinko’s, RIP
I guess they’re really serious about this integration thing. When high-end, business-friendly FedEx bought low-end, consumer-unfriendly Kinko’s, it paid $891 million for that hugely valuable (ahem) Kinko’s brand. Which it’s now jettisoning, writing off that $891 million in the process. … Continue reading
InBev-Bud: The Brazilians Are Coming
There’s an air of inevitability about this InBev bid for Anheuser Busch: it might take a while, it might end up having to be raised, but I have a feeling that, sooner or later, it’s going to happen. When it … Continue reading
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Carl Icahn’s Communication Problems
Remember last year, when Rupert Murdoch and Harvey Golub played phone tag? Rupert left a message for Harvey on March 29, but Harvey was out of the country. When Harvey returned Rupert’s call on April 4, Rupert was out of … Continue reading
Barclays’ Plan B: No Better Than Plan A
Is Bob Diamond delusional? Barclays’ top team feels it has earned kudos with the City by walking away from last year’s battle for ABN Amro, which was bought by a consortium led by RBS for ߣ47bn. Um, walking away? That’s … Continue reading
Getting it Backwards
The FT reports: Cowotinam of the US, known for its ice-dispensing equipment as well as its Niatop tower cranes, again upped its bid for Britain’s Sidone, which controls a range of catering brands… Actually, I reversed all the company names … Continue reading
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The Fake Takeover Bidder Returns
Paul Murphy wonders whether Lawrence Niren might be back to his old tricks, announcing monster takeover bids under an assumed name so that he can flip the stock for a quick profit. This time the name in question is "Michael … Continue reading
Eyeball Datapoint of the Day
Did you know that there was a $45 billion eyecare company called Alcon? I had no idea, until I saw that a controlling stake in it was being sold by one big Swiss company to another big Swiss company. On … Continue reading
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The JP Morgan-Bear Stearns Option Agreement
Remember Exhibit A, the stock option agreement between JP Morgan and Bear Stearns which no one made public? Well, it’s finally been filed with the SEC. And it says exactly what everybody’s been saying that it says, only in legalese … Continue reading
Open Questions About the JP Morgan-Bear Stearns Deal
Karen Donovan has a good story up about the complex deal to buy Bear Stearns, and all the high-powered legal advice which went into it. For all that legal firepower, however, the agreement seems pretty precarious: "Everything about this deal … Continue reading
How Important is JP Morgan’s Option to buy Bear Stock?
There’s one detail of the WSJ’s weekend narrative which is worth its own blog entry: the way in which the deal to buy Bear Stearns was structured. The lawyers seem to have tried very hard to make the deal airtight, … Continue reading
Yahoo and the Failed M&A Deals
Stephen Grocer has a great post about Yahoo’s M&A track record: the companies it did buy and shouldn’t have, as well as the companies it didn’t buy and should have. In the former camp: the $3 billion acquisition of GeoCities, … Continue reading
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The Arithmetic of the Microsoft-Yahoo Bid
Dan Gross, looking at Yahoo’s share price, says that investors assume the Microsoft-Yahoo deal won’t happen. Which is weird, because Yahoo’s share price has actually been gaining on Microsoft’s bid ever since the announcement was made. I think Gross is … Continue reading
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Why Does Google Oppose the Microsoft-Yahoo Deal?
Sam Gustin reckons that Google, for all its protestations, could actually benefit from a Yahoo-Microsoft merger. I’m more likely to take Google at its word, but Sam says that Google is playing a sophisticated game: trying to delay the merger … Continue reading
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Is M&A Decoupling From Lending?
Would that this sort of thing happened much more often: Vale, the world’s second-largest mining group, has fired Merrill Lynch as one of its two lead advisers after the investment bank decided not to help finance a potential $90bn takeover … Continue reading
Goldman Gets its Yahoo-Microsoft Mandate
Goldman Sachs didn’t lose any time getting itself a mandate in the Yahoo-Microsoft merger. Goldman advised Microsoft in its attempt to buy Yahoo last year, but wasn’t hired by the Redmond giant this time around. Not to worry: Goldman has … Continue reading
How Google is Like a Hedge Fund
Big stand-alone hedge funds generally did well in 2007; hedge funds owned by investment banks, by contrast, did much worse. I can’t help but see an analogy here: Microsoft is bringing Yahoo in-house, to compete with the big stand-alone Google. … Continue reading
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Goldman Loses Microsoft Mandate
Which banks did Microsoft mandate to put together its monster $44 billion bid for Yahoo? Morgan Stanley – and Blackstone! This is a huge loss for Goldman Sachs, which advised Microsoft in its failed attempt to buy Yahoo last year. … Continue reading
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ADS Takeover Hopes Collapse
Busted merger-arb trade of the day is the acquisition of Alliance Data Systems by Blackstone. Blackstone agreed to pay $81.75 per share for ADS, but the market didn’t believe it: on January 18, ADS shares were trading only at $52.82. … Continue reading