For those who have a life are less interested in messy details, the explanation for the dealmaking optimism of recent months goes something like this:
– Since roughly last summer (OMT), tail risks are perceived to be down. And despite Washington’s reverse midas touch, the private sector has shown signs of staying resilient, including a streak of a spookily consistent employment reports. Read more
Does US-listed Pacific Drilling look like a credible takeover target? We think it probably does, 0n balance, and we’d very much like to find out more. Read more
It’s 2:45am in Vancouver. Do you know where your investor relations department is?
Here’s this morning’s Daily Mail. Read more
You know the script here. X company announces that it is acquiring Y; a few days later news of a class action law suit ticks across the wires, typically alleging the directors have failed in their fiduciary duties in some manner; thereafter, silence…
Research by Robert Daines and Olga Koumrian at Cornerstone suggests that such litigation has become the norm since the onset of the financial crisis. Read more
Big news in RAW sewage this Saturday evening.
PARIS | Sat Oct 20, 2012 8:33pm BST (Reuters) – Veolia Environnement and Suez Environnement said on Saturday they were not working on a merger after Le Monde newspaper reported the two companies had held talks that fell apart over antitrust concerns. Read more
The exact time of death can be recorded as 1:01pm BST. But, really, the pulse was lost long ago.
BAE Systems and EADS announced that they have decided to terminate their discussions. So should we blame another breakdown in eurozone relations? Or maybe, just maybe, BEADS wasn’t a merger worth saving. Read more
Pascal Soriot doesn’t start as AstraZeneca’s new CEO until Monday, yet everyone seems to know what he should do first: go shopping.
The problems soon to be faced by the former Genentech CEO are well known. AstraZeneca is heading towards the steepest of patent cliffs and has so far failed to find anything in the R&D labs that might cushion its fall. Drugs losing US patent protection by 2015 account for a more than a fifth of its sales, rising to nearly a third of sales by 2019. Recent launches of diabetes and heart disease pills have fallen short and what’s in the late-stage pipeline (arthritis, constipation and gout, since you ask) is considered quite likely to fail. Read more
It’s been a lively few weeks for Monster Worldwide, the recruitment website.
For a company that’s been for sale since February, that’s quite a move. BofA Merrill Lynch and Stone Key Partners have been courting buyers for the past six months and final-round bids went in this week, according to Dealreporter (subscription required). Read more
As fantasy banking M&A goes — this isn’t such an outlandish idea, we reckon.
But see what you think: Read more
Peter Eavis over at Dealbook notes an underrated aspect of the big M&T/Hudson City regional banking deal — regulatory capital:
To do well in annual Federal Reserve stress tests, M&T Bank may want to increase its Tier 1 common ratio substantially. Read more
Well, that was silly.
It’s a big, big China leveraged buyout — the biggest ever, in fact. Advertising company Focus Media, which is listed in the US, said it has received a $3.5bn takeover offer from its chief executive who is backed by a number of private equity groups, including Carlyle.
It’s gained attention in part because the offer (in the form of a non-binding proposal letter) of $27 per share is higher than the level the shares closed on the last day before the short seller Muddy Waters published the first of several reports criticising the company. Read more
Remember Friday afternoon RAW? Well, this is most definitely Friday afternoon RAW. Please read the disclaimer carefully.
Microsoft posted the first quarterly loss, of some $0.06 per share, in the company’s publicly-listed history on Thursday. Its flagged $6.2bn writedown of goodwill on the acquisition of aQuantive got the blame.
(Actual underlying earnings were $0.73 per share, while net cash generation is worth highlighting: $31.6bn) Read more
[Update: the offer has been withdrawn..."recent publicity around the proposal has made it difficult to proceed".]
… and you’re an established but struggling department store operator (think a rubbish John Lewis) and obvious bid target. You’ve never heard of this bidder, but they insist they’re for real. What do you do? Read more
Section 15 of Germany’s Securities Trading Act, as divined by the Federal Ministry of Justince, requires publicly listed companies in Germany to release any price sensitive announcement “without delay.”
i.e. In the case of chemicals and gases specialist Linde, that means ‘after five days’ Read more
Just in case the real trophies never get cast, here are the advisers to the $90 $80 $70 $60 $55(?)bn putative merger between Glencore and Xstrata. Click to enlarge.
First there was the foul-up over competition issues. Unbelievably, Glenstrata had not factored in the likelihood of a referral to the European authorities. Read more
At the age of 81, we’d rather Rupert not attempt this in public. But what should we make of the WSJ’s story on Tuesday that News Corporation, the Murdochs’ parent company, is considering splitting in two?
The usual people claiming to be familiar with the situation say a plan is being considered whereby News Corp’s film and television interests would be carved off, leaving its newspapers, book publishing and education businesses as a separate entity. That would leave 20th century Fox, Fox News and the Fox broadcast network separate from newspapers, such as the Sun and the Times of London, as well as the HarperCollins book publishing business. Read more
Invensys popped almost 27 per cent on Wednesday on the back of some renewed bid speculation. As Paul noted unusually firm speculation has swirled round Invensys for months now and quite a few fingers have been burned as the company consistently failed to supply any confirmatory statements.
The lastest piece of guess-work came via Bloomberg (now updated): Read more
Kinda nutty this. For months now unusually firm bid speculation has swirled round Invensys. Accompanying press articles have carried progressively more detail. As recently as May 12 the Sunday Times named Siemens, ABB, Emerson and General Electric as all eyeing the British engineer.
But each time the share price has risen in anticipation of a fully-formed takeover, the lack of a confirmatory statement has burned the speculators. Read more
We found out on Monday that Nelson Peltz’s investment firm Trian has a roughly 5.1 per cent chunk of Lazard.
Peltz doesn’t dominate the headlines like certain other activist investors, preferring to pick his spots and eschewing diversification in Trian’s portfolio. But he’s known for getting involved in his companies and has had some influence on the other two big financial services companies in which Trian has large stakes, State Street and Legg Mason. Read more
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, easyJet founder and on-going thorn-in-the-side of the existing board, is developing a new airline — across Africa.
In what promises to be a colourful business combination, he’s joining forces with David Lenigas of Lonrho to launch “Fastjet,” a low cost carrier that is promising to operate across the African continent. Read more
Click image for the full, 136-page doc.
M&A flows and their impact on currencies are an especially hard thing to get a grip on – cause and effect can get quite muddied.
A recent note from UBS analyst Chris Walker took another shot at discovering how M&A flows influence the FX markets. He argues that while M&A flows do influence FX markets, they do so largely because of expectations and speculation — not because of flows directly related to M&A transactions (UBS’ emphasis): Read more
Here’s something odd.
Related links:
Lynch mobbed – FT Alphaville
Revisiting Autonomy’s Iron Mountain deal – FT Alphaville Read more
Three Alphavillans are running around Canary Wharf in East London this evening in support of the British Heart Foundation.
Left to right: Lisa Pollack, David Keohane and Masa Serdarevic Read more
Older entries
1Bernanke weighs in on robot wars; brings Keynes for backup
2Secret liquidity and Scottish independence
3About China's capacity to absorb more capital
4Spain's awful unemployment
5Pump up, debase
Show more6S&P 2,100, by Goldman Sachs
7Everlasting credit, the long view
8Buyback to enrich
9Apple Operations International, facts (?) du jour
10Collateral crunch-counting gets sophisticated
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