Below are abstract summaries we prepared of M&A articles which caught our eye.
- Infrastructure: Blackrock money manager fund is paying $12.5bn in stock for Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), amalgamating them and sharing profits from airport and other assets (Financial Times Jan 13, 2024).
- Brands: the UK fashion retailer “Next” paid £115m for the brand “Fat Face” (named after a ski run in France). More brands give customers more choice. (Financial Times Oct 13, 2023)
- Staying big: For some firms, including law firms staying big and influential motivates the deal as in Allen & Ovey and Shearman (Financial Times Oct 13, 2023: https://www.ft.com/content/7a74d145-2175-455e-86d5-4263d1fde0ad)
- Never to big to learn: McDonalds is buying back a 20% share in McDonalds successful operations in China from Citic Capital, bringing its share up to 48%. This is after selling an 80% share back in 2017. (Financial Times Nov 21, 2023)
- Going for a song. Exxon paid $59.5bn for shale giant Pioneer, because it is cheaper to expand shale acreage by M&A than drilling for it (Financial Times Oct 11, 2023)
- Not going for a song. Shareholders at Hipgnosis Songs Fund objected to selling Blondie songs for $440m after Round Hill sold Bruno Mars songs for $496m. (Financial Times October 6, 2023)
- If a tender .process is used, can you can prove you offered/received the best price? Abcam had to defend its proposed $5.7bn takeover by Danaher. (Financial Times Oct 5, 2023)
- Misconduct: If you buy a US business with misconduct skeletons in its closet, you have 6 months to report them under a new policy of the US Department of Justice. (Financial Times Oct 4, 2023)
- Keeping up: Big pharmaceutical companies need to replenish their drug pipelines affordably e.g. Eli Lilly’s $1.4bn acquisition of Point Biopharma Global.(Financial Times Oct 3, 2023)
- Private equity: Silver Lake Partners and Michael Dell sold VMware (cloud computing) for $92bn, making a $70bn gain. 3G has made $19bn after investing $1.6bn in Berger King (Financial Times Dec 16, 2023).
Visit: MergeAcq.com
13.1.2024
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