M&A / Deal

✒ “The data show how investors chasing high yields in private markets have catapulted valuations to once unthinkable levels, while allowing start-ups to delay public offerings.”

✒ A multi-billion dollar surprise.

✒ A highly merchandisable brand.

✒ The buying spree continues.

✒ Setting price expectations.

✒ AB InBev manages to deleverage while getting a rich multiple for its developed market business.

✒ Short answer: “In­stead of over­pay­ing for once-dom­i­nant units that have prob­a­bly seen their best days, hunt for the emerg­ing su­per­stars where peak value is still to come. Strike­outs will hap­pen, but the cost of fail­ure is a round­ing er­ror com­pared with a big merger gone bad.”

✒ Pursue many small deals that accrue to a meaningful amount of market capitalization over multiple years instead of relying on episodic, “big-bang” transactions.

✒ Judging from AbbVie’s 15% fall of share price, AbbVie’s shareholders apparently are not impressed by the 45 per cent premium it is paying.

✒ “Sotheby’s is a superb brand, which never makes money, but it gives its owners a seat at the table of the rich and famous.” Said a billionaire art collector. The company last year earned a profit of $109m on revenues just over $1bn — a profit margin of around 10 per cent.

✒ Salesforce’s largest deal to date.

✒ The costs of nec­es­sary in­vest­ments in the in­dus­try are be­com­ing so oner­ous that com­pa­nies which have fought each other for mar­ket share for decades are now join­ing forces to share the bur­den.

✒ Back in 2012, Avon passed on an of­fer from Coty for $24.75 a share that included back­ing from War­ren Buf­fett’s Berk­shire Hath­away. On Wednesday it closed at $3.49 a share.

✒ If you can’t beat them, buy them.

✒ A shocking premium of 122% to replenish pipelines and take a short-cut to high returns.

✒ Spinning off.

✒ Tencent accounts for half of the new funding. Access to Reddit is blocked in China, FYI.

✒ “To get access to adjacent markets, and where there’s a good strategic fit”.

✒ It is an all-stock deal.