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• Thursday, 23 May 2013

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• M&A Activity Benefits Investors - 21 February 2013

A series of mergers and acquisitions in the past few months have been rewarding for investors fortunate enough to have had shares in the companies involved. Just last week, Berkshire Hathaway and 3G capital joined forces to buy HJ Heinz, resulting in Heinz shares rising by 20 percent to $72.50 per share, while shares of Warren Buffet's company rose by one percent. The acquisition of Heinz represents the largest deal of its kind in the food industry ever to have taken place.

• NYSE Euronext/Deutsche Boerse Deal Inches Forward - 14 July 2011

Deutsche Boerse shareholders, representing up to 60 percent of the German exchange's voting shares, indicated on Wednesday just hours before the close of the deal that they approve of the proposal to merge with NYSE Euronext. While 75 percent is required for the deal to move forward, it is reportedly quite common for institutional investors to hold back tendering their shares until just before an offer ends. Based on past trends, analysts have voiced confidence that the 75 percent requirement will be attained. The merger of these two historic exchanges will result in the largest stock exchange in the world. However, there is still plenty of red tape to cut through, and scrutiny by anti-trust authorities to be dealt with before it is a done deal.

• CenturyLink & Qwest: Creating a Telecom Giant - 17 March 2011

Regulators in Washington State have given the nod to the acquisition of Qwest Communications by CenturyLink – two of the largest telecommunication companies in the United States. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:CTL) and a member of the S&P500 index, CenturyLink is set to become the third-largest telecommunications company in the country upon the successful conclusion of the buyout – AT&T being the largest, followed by Verizon.

• M&A Activity in Exchanges Raises Concerns - 10 February 2011

As technology drives down the cost of accessing markets around the world and opens up electronic trading to a growing flood of investors, exchanges are looking at joining forces through mergers and acquisitions – such as the proposed acquisition of NYSE Euronext by the Deutsche Borse. Should the proposal be approved, shareholders of Deutsche Borse would be majority owners of the new entity which will be domiciled in the Netherlands. Replaced by high-speed technology, gone are the days of organized chaos that characterized the NYSE as portrayed in the movies, where fortunes were made or lost and market changes were greeted with human emotions of elation or despair. Some call it progress, while others express concern over giving increasing power to technology and being at the mercy of machines with less and less human intervention, opening up the possibility of disaster, as was experienced in the ' flash crash' of May 6, 2010.

• Comcast/NBC Merger Raises Media Dominance Concerns - 3 February 2011

Comcast Corporation, the largest home internet service provider and cable operator in the United States, has completed its merger with American television network NBC, in a deal that has raised concerns regarding the level of control the now $30 billion media giant will have over information delivered to the public. Comcast now holds a 51 percent stake in NBC Universal, with General Electric holding a 49 percent stake, putting Comcast in the position of controlling more telecommunications lines and Internet connections than any other service provider in the country. Included in the assets of Comcast will be the NBC broadcast network, a number of cable channels, more than twenty local NBC and Telemundo stations, online video portals, movie studios and the network that delivers media content to millions of Americans through cable and internet connections. In order to overcome the possible threat to "the development of innovative online video distribution services", as noted by the FCC, a range of stipulations and conditions are included in the deal, many of which are only for a set period of time.

• Bristol-Myers Squibb Makes $4.3 Billion Buy-Out Bid for ImClone - 1 August 2008

In an effort to regain its prominence as a leading manufacturer of oncology-related drugspharmaceutical corporation Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) has approached biotechnology company ImClone Systems Incorporated with an offer to purchase the portion of ImClone that BMS does not yet own for the amount of $4.3 billion. BMS delivered the written offer, which works out at $60 per share, to ImClone’s chairman, Carl C. Icahn on Thursday 31 August while at the same time completing a U.S. regulatory filing.

• KKR Aims for Listing on NYSE - 28 July 2008

New York City-based private equity investment firm, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co (KKR), has announced that an agreement has been concluded for the acquisition of all of the assets, as well as the assumption of all liabilities, of KKR Private Equity Investors (KPE). Moreover, KKR aims to become a listed company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) by the end of the year.