M&A / Deal

✒ Examples of ways to avoid refinancing of debt in a takeover: An executive involved in one of these transactions describes: “Selling a business with debt remaining in place is a real asset”. However, investors such as funds that invest in corporate credit might view this kind of arrangements with scepticism because the capital structure … Read More

✒ “Now the interest is public, it has opened Pandora’s box. If it isn’t FAB, it will be someone else.” Said a senior Middle Eastern banker at  rival.

✒ BioNTech’s biggest-ever deal with an aim to expand beyond the Covid-19 vaccine that transformed its fortunes. Commentary by FT: “Success in the battle against Covid-19 does not ensure success against cancer, but should narrow the odds. While many innovative biotechs are struggling to raise funds, a successful coronavirus vaccine has left Moderna with about … Read More

✒ When it comes to M&A deals, outside advisors are often a necessity. However, an analysis of market reactions to 10,000 U.S.-based acquisitions found that firms with a single advisor outperformed those with none — but firms which retained two or more advisors performed worse than those with just one. Too many cooks can spoil … Read More

✒ On the one hand, LSEG has become primarily a data company, indices and price data matter more to it than share trading. Data aggregation has led to transactions such as the purchase of Refinitiv data business and FTSE International. Tie-ups with cloud giants are a natural next step. On the other hand, Microsoft as … Read More

✒ The three areas of risk: governance, due diligence and a focus on growth at all costs.

✒ The cosmetics giant’s largest-ever acquisition.

✒ Tech and communications businesses now make up roughly half of Berkshire’s stock portfolio. Apple, Activision Blizzard and now TSMC are the three tech companies under the conglomerate’s top stock holdings.

✒ The Competition and Markets Authority’s final decision means that Meta has to sell Giphy  off in its entirety to an approved buy. But finding a buyer could prove difficulty for Meta as Giphy said in the filing that few companies other than Meta were likely to be interested in buying it, not to mention … Read More

✒ Getting ready for the next cycle.

✒ Like its Big Four rivals — Deloitte, KPMG and PwC — EY is made up of a network of national member firms in about 150 countries. Unlike the parent company in a corporate group that can mandate its subsidiaries to do as it desires, EY Global cannot order the member firms to do what … Read More

✒ Peter Harrison — Schroders chief executive said that the deal is not about cryptocurrencies but about “how do we get tokenisation mainstream”. The focus was on blockchain “as a means of ownership” rather than cryptocurrencies “as a means of payment”.

✒ Lookout for deals by dealmakers with labels like “continuation fund” or “GP/adviser-led secondary”.

✒ It will be a big move and a hard feat to pull off. Such M&A activities within professional services firms are complicated since consensus among individual partners who own and run the businesses in each country have to be built.

✒ Rolling out the LVMH playbook? Or just being bored?

✒ Putting the once-in-a-lifetime Covid cash windfall to work. Expect more deals to come.

✒ With the $7.14bn of funding raised for his $44bn buyout of Twitter, the margin loans from a group of lenders can be cut by half to $6.25bn, and the equity portion can be increased to $27.25bn. Investors includes Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, crypto exchange Binance, Qatar Investment Authority, and asset management groups Fidelity, Brookfield … Read More

✒ The “reverse termination fee” revealed in the regulatory filing indicates that with this favourable term, Musk could abandon the deal by paying just a fraction of the $21bn of equity he has committed to complete the transaction. The amount represents just 2.27% of the overall deal value which is substantially lower than the penalty … Read More

✒ Funding secured this time?

✒ Being the largest acquisition by a technology company in history, this deal size is more than twice the size of Microsoft’s previous biggest deal, the acquisition of LinkedIn in 2016 for $26 billion. According to Dealogic, it is also the biggest deal since 2019 and the largest cash acquisition of a U.S. company ever. … Read More