Citi Examines its Carrots and Sticks
I just got off the phone with Carl Tobias, a professor at Richmond School of Law; I asked him whether the exclusivity agreement between Citigroup and Wachovia was worth the paper it was written on. His...
View ArticleHow Much Will a Wells-Wachovia Deal Cost Taxpayers?
Anybody following the fight between Citi and Wells Fargo has to read Binyamin Appelbaum’s front-page piece in the Washington Post on the tax assumptions behind the Wells Fargo offer. In touting the...
View ArticleWachovia: Getting Messy
The fight over Wachovia is getting messy. Court judgments are getting overruled; obscure provisions in the bailout legislation are taking on a crucial importance; the Fed is acting like King Solomon,...
View ArticleWhere is Citi’s M&A Expertise?
Bill Ackman made an interesting point at the Value Investing Congress today: Citi announced its deal with Wachovia on Monday September 29, at which point both boards had signed off on it. Given that...
View ArticleThe Duplicitous Sheila Bair
After Wachovia agreed to be bought by Wells Fargo on Friday, the FDIC’s Sheila Bair put out a press release saying that her agency "stands behind its previously announced agreement with Citigroup"....
View ArticleWhere Buyers Should be Looking
There was an interesting exchange just now on the deals panel, between Jim Casella, of Case Interactive Media, and Michael Wolff. If you have cash right now, said Casella, it’s a great time to be a...
View ArticleWho Will Take Over Citi?
As John Carney notes today, Citigroup’s market capitalization is $21 billion; that of Goldman Sachs is $20 billion. Can anyone say "merger of equals"? Nothing’s unthinkable in this market, not even the...
View ArticleJP Morgan: A Better Acquirer than Bank of America
Once Citigroup has been broken up, America will have two big financial supermarkets: Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase. There are many differences between them, but a very big one is their track...
View ArticleTicketmaster-Live Nation: Mission Improbable
One congressman is already calling for an antitrust investigation of Ticketmaster — and that’s before any merger with Live Nation is even announced. If the Obama administration wants to demonstrate...
View ArticleWhy Live Nation Shouldn’t Merge With Ticketmaster
I got an interesting email last night from Michael Hershfield, the CEO of ticket site LiveStub, about the proposed Ticketmaster/Live Nation tie-up. If this deal goes ahead, then it seems we might be...
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Annals of Crap Research, M&A Leaks Edition
You might recall that about three weeks ago, there was a mini-spate of articles about how leaks imperil M&A deals. Here’s a typical one, from CFO.com (not to pick on them in particular, there were...
View ArticleBud Board Backs Busch By Blockheadedly Blackballing Belgian Brazilians
Disappointingly, but unsurprisingly, Anheuser-Busch will reject InBev’s takeover bid. Will they do so by promising shareholders much more value as an independent company? It’s hard to see how they...
View ArticleFurther Tales of Microhoo Incompetence
The WSJ reports today not only that some kind of Microsoft-Yahoo deal might be on again, but also that: In mid-May — weeks after Microsoft withdrew its bid — Yahoo offered to sell itself to Microsoft...
View ArticleInBev Goes Hostile
InBev has gone hostile, to no one’s great surprise, seeking to replace Anheuser-Busch’s current board with a new slate of nominees including Adolphus A. Busch IV, who is not to be confused with the...
View ArticleCarl Icahn’s Communication Problem: Solved!
May 20: So far, Mr. Icahn hasn’t been in touch with Microsoft — though he tried to call the company’s chief executive, Steven Ballmer, through the main switchboard at Microsoft’s headquarters and was...
View ArticleHow Bear Markets Help M&A Dealmaking
The FT reports on how the Dow-Rohm deal got done so easily: Dow’s $78 per share bid represented a premium of 46 to 47 per cent to Rohm and Haas’ share price when the parties first started to negotiate,...
View ArticleThe Busch and the Marlin
David Kesmodel has the wonderful story of what happened when Anheuser-Busch’s then-CEO, August Busch III, went on an ill-fated marlin fishing trip with a group of Modelo executives in the early 1990s....
View ArticleCould GE Buy Lehman?
"Banker 700" leaves an intriguing comment on my last post: GE will end up buying Lehman. They actually want LEH. They fit well together. You heard it here first. As Alea points out, it’s not all that...
View ArticleMerrill-BofA: Doubts Surface
Is Bank of America really going to buy Merrill Lynch? The stock market’s saying that it has its doubts. With stock prices having settled down a little this morning, BAC is trading at $29.36 per share...
View ArticleBarclehs: It’s On
The FT reports that Barclays is swooping in on its white horse and scooping up the distressed Lehman Brothers: The two parties reached an agreement in the New York morning that centres around Lehman’s...
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