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’TPG makes it fifteen for Yahoo
Breaking news on Thursday night/Friday morning: TPG Capital enters the fray for Yahoo.
Here’s more from the NYT:
The private equity firm TPG Capital has signed a nondisclosure agreement with Yahoo,
YahooSoft, a match made in 1997 heaven
It’s 2:59am and there’s nobody else left unpaired on the dancefloor:
Wednesday, October 05, 2011 2:45:37 PM RTRS – EXCLUSIVE-MICROSOFT CORP MSFT.O IS CONSIDERING A BID FOR YAHOO INC YHOO.O -SOURCES MSFT.O SILAK.UL YHOO.O
The resulting action:
That loud sucking sound is Facebook poaching your employees
Spotted on page 66 of Citigroup’s epic Tuesday report on “Social Media, E-payments & the new Digital Market”, a neat depiction of the talent war among some the big digital media firms:
(More
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Thomas Cook warns on profits – statement.
- PSA Peugeot reports rise in sales — statement.
- Microsoft and Yell announce strategic alliance — statement.
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- Cisco beats expectations after the bell.
- What is the Gulf Cooperation Council?
- Oil prices and trading mechanics.
- More on those new CDOs, ETFs.
- Microsoft caused the dot-com bubble.
Microsoft and Skype, for and against
Microsoft’s agreed $8.5bn acquisition of Skype evokes shades of the frenzied dotcom bubble era and M&A tech mania: the deal, unveiled on Tuesday, brings this year’s total of announced tech deals to $94.5bn — a 56 per cent increase from last year – and also marks the highest levels of tech M&A activity since 2000,
Further further reading
For the commute home,
- A new toy for Bill Gross: the UltraShort 20 Yr Treasury ETF (TBT) performance simulator.
- Primary materials on secondary markets from today’s House hearing.
- One, two,
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Tuesday,
- Microsoft close to deal to buy Skype — report.
- CME increases trading margins for US crude futures by 25 per cent — statement and report.
- Pace warns on profits — statement.
ARM moves closer to PC market
The FTSE 100 has regained its composure after Tuesday’s wobble and leading the market higher is ARM Holdings.
Now, shares in the chip designer rose 5 per cent in the US overnight after tech blog Engadget showed a demo of the next version of Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE10).
Nokia’s rebel alliance [updated]
They’re calling it Plan B, which isn’t nearly as fun. This has been doing the rounds in recent days and we offer it in light of debate on the deal with Microsoft:
We are a group of nine young Nokia shareholders.
Man strolls back into burning platform
Actually — less ‘man jumps off burning platform’, more two elephants romping on an ominously squelching water bed.
Or as Nokia put it on Friday:
- Plans for a broad strategic partnership with Microsoft to build a new global mobile ecosystem;
Dear Nokia and Microsoft CEOs
Required reading ahead of next week’s make-or-break strategy day at Nokia:
Snap news
Breaking pre-market news on Friday,
- Amazon now selling more Kindle books than paperbacks — statement.
- De La Rue not seen any adverse impact from banknote printing problems; discussions with biggest customer ongoing — statement.
Intel builds a $9bn deathstar to kill the rebels
Perhaps Jim ‘Mad Money’ Cramer is right and chip designer Arm Holdings really is significantly undervalued.
In the wake of Intel’s forecast-busting earnings overnight, shares in the Cambridge-based company charged to their highest level in a decade on Friday:
Arm and Mad Money [updated]
Arm Holdings is in the charge again on Tuesday morning:
And the reason for this move? Traders reckon it could be the following…
Overnight CNBC’s Jim ‘Mad Money’ Cramer told viewers of his show that the Cambridge-based chip designer,
Beware dynastic billionaires, Warren wants YOU…
With the latest outbreak of Buffett and Gates-inspired philanthropic good cheer, it’s almost getting to the point where any billionaire who is not giving away a chunk of his or her fortune will be portrayed as the ultimate Grinch.
Cisco blues
The sell-off in Cisco Systems, which plunged more than 14 per cent on Wednesday evening after the US tech giant reported better-than-expected 1Q earnings, speaks volumes about investor perceptions – not just about the direction of the US tech giant and corporate bellwether,
Walmart tops, err, bottoms Microsoft
We’ve updated this chart a couple of times before, and we may as well do it again:
It shows the continuing decline of investment-grade coupon spreads. These coupons have hit record lows this year,
About those Yahoo buyout rumours
Shares in Yahoo are blazing in pre-market trading:
That’s $17.21 per share versus a Wednesday close of $15.25 per share …
…after the Wall Street Journal reported that several private equity companies are mulling bids:
Microsoft, debt/equity arb, and IG coupons
Have a look at this chart from Econompic Data that’s been making the rounds since Wednesday:
It shows the paltry coupons at which Microsoft has just issued debt — from the story in Bloomberg:
SEC Charges Pequot Capital and CEO Samberg with insider trading
It’s been a busy week for financial regulators, and a mixed one — at best — for hedge funds.
On Thursday, the SEC said it had charged Pequot Capital Management and its chairman and chief exec Arthur Samberg with insider trading in Microsoft shares.
Microsoft and News Corp discuss web alliance
Microsoft has discussed a plan with News Corp to “de-index” the media company’s news websites from Google. The Financial Times has learnt that Microsoft, which owns the rival Bing search engine, has also approached other big online publishers to persuade them to remove their sites from Google’s search engine.
China deals blow to Microsoft
A Chinese court has ruled that Microsoft infringed a Chinese software maker’s intellectual property rights in a surprise decision that has renewed worries among foreign patent experts about China’s management of IPR disputes.
AMD and Intel kiss and make-up
FT Alphaville did not see this coming: AMD and Intel on Thursday declared the end of one of the longest-running and bitterest spats in the technology sector (see also: Apple v Microsoft, Yahoo v Google,
Cisco-Tandberg: bump, dump, or trump?
Cisco’s first big overseas acquisition appears to have run into a spot of bother:
TANDBERG (TAA NO) / CISCO (CSCO US) – SEB Enskilda issues statement saying that it has been in contact with several of Tandberg’s large shareholders.
Yahoo renews vow to fight Microsoft
Yahoo showed on Monday that it intends to keep fighting Microsoft on multiple fronts, demonstrating improvements in the way it presents search results and other offerings. The rival companies announced an alliance last month aimed at competing with Google,
Publicis lands Razorfish for $530m
Publicis Groupe, the French marketing and communications business, has beaten rivals including WPP and Dentsu in the race to acquire Razorfish from Microsoft. The deal, which values the digital agency at about $530m,
Publicis nears Razorfish acquisition
Publicis Groupe is closing in on an acquisition of Razorfish, Microsoft’s digital advertising agency, and could agree final terms by early next week. The situation remains fluid, but the French communications company has taken the lead in a contest with Dentsu,