Tag Archive for 'M&A'

MicroHoo: What Everyone’s Talking About

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ron
on May 4, 2008
in Global Strategy, High Tech & Media and Social Media
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Microsoft throws in the towel

Backgrounders on
BBC | Analysis: Microsoft without Yahoo
BusinessWeek | Microsoft Drops Bid for Yahoo
Financial Times | Yahoo under pressure after deal collapse
Bloomberg | Microsoft Walks Away From Yahoo After Fight on Price
CNBC | As Deal Unravels, Pressure Is on Yahoo to Perform
Reuters | Investors eye Yahoo’s alternatives to Microsoft
The Economist | Microsoft throws in the towel
The New York Times | Microsoft-Yahoo: What Everyone’s Talking About
The Wall Street Journal | Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Offer After Attempt to Bridge Gap in Price

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The Mood in The City

Published
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ron
on April 14, 2008
in International Business and International Finance
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The mood in London financial markets is not good. House prices are going down, and with them the British pound. Investment bankers within UBS are looking around for jobs, and the Royal Bank of Scotland is sweeping ABN Amro’s trading floor clean with incredible lack of style:

ABN’s structured credit traders were apparently told on Thursday that they should report to RBS’ London office in preparation for a move there on Monday. Terminals needed to be checked and such like. And when they got there… they were all fired (full story).

Luckily, the British have a great sense of humour, and I couldn’t stop laughing at this economic assessment of London 2010 from the price of everything blog:

London, April 2010 – Wall Street firms have just announced their latest results for FY 2009;

300 million staff have been “written down”, leaving just two (Sid and Doris Bonkers) to manage the investment banks’ remaining worldwide debt, equity, merger and advisory, securitisation, syndication and prime brokerage businesses.

Marti Peeps, sole analyst at the last remaining research house, Teletext, welcomed the results as “a bold step in the face of ongoing bad debt provisioning,” though conceded that the City’s newly “rightsized” payroll might struggle to take on board the burgeoning supply of new issuance, namely the packet of Walkers Crisps rumoured to be hitting the primary market in late summer 2012.Hopes for a recovery in Wall Street earnings have for several quarters hinged on the prospects for the successful completion of a 40p private placement of a bag of Salt and Vinegar flavour crisps on behalf of the Walkers Crisps Company. Lead underwriters JPCitigroupMerrill, a subsidiary of the US government, and Northern Rock SocGen KFW Nomura, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesco plc (Neasden branch), are rumoured to have “solid” interest for the underwriting, most notably from Asia, itself a subsidiary of Texas Pacific Group, but declined to go into further detail. (click here for pdf version. Enjoy!)

Update @ April 15th: London’s financial services sector faces a loss of 20,000 jobs over the next two years. Cuts by Citigroup and RBS are the tip of the iceberg (BusinessWeek).

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Microsoft and Yahoo….?

Published
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ron
on February 1, 2008
in Global Strategy and High Tech & Media
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Yahoo! and Microsoft

Today, (February 1st) Microsoft Corporation, the world’s biggest software maker, made an unsolicited $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! Inc. to challenge Google Inc.’s dominance in Internet search services and advertising. The proposed deal, which would transform the software and internet-services industries, values Yahoo! at $31 a share, a 62% premium over the closing price on Thursday. What will the outcome be?

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Leadership Power at Goldman Sachs

Published
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admin
on November 14, 2007
in International Business
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NYC Financial District

With the appointment of Mr. Thain as the new chief executive of Merrill Lynch, one fact becomes more and more apparent: Goldman Sachs is not only increasingly inescapable as financial power but also in fostering new leaders.

First of all Goldman Sachs is recording immense profits year after year and apparently avoided the woes besetting its rivals by deftly betting against subprime mortgages. Secondly for many years now, it is the world’s most premier and perennial leader in investment banking products and services. Lately it becomes apparent that they are also great in nurturing (new) great leaders.

With the appointment of Mr. Thain (currently CEO of NYSE-Euronext) as CEO at Merril Lynch, Goldman Sachs’ top executives and personnel seem to be increasingly in demand across the entire financial service industry. Thain started out on the bond desk at Goldman Sachs and left the firm as its chief operating officer. Please consider the names of Goldman alumni who have popped up in the news over the past few weeks (source):

  • Mr. Rubin, the former Goldman co-C.E.O. who became Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration, is now Citi Group’s chairman.
  • Duncan L. Niederauer, Mr. Thain’s successor as chief executive of NYSE Euronext. Before joining the bourse in February as president and chief operating officer, he was a managing director and co-head of Goldman’s equities execution services.
  • Daniel Och, co-founder and head of Och-Ziff Capital Management, which on Wednesday became the first pure-play domestic hedge fund to go public in the United States. Former Goldman trader.
  • Robert Steel, Treasury undersecretary for domestic finance who helped direct the creation of a bailout vehicle for banks colloquially known as the Super-SIV (special investment vehicle). Former Goldman vice chairman under Mr. Paulson.
  • Robert S. Kaplan, interim head of the Harvard Management Company. A former vice chairman and head of Goldman’s investment banking and investment management businesses.
  • John L. Thornton, chairman of the Brookings Institution and longshot candidate for Citigroup’s CEO spot. A Goldman former president and co-chief executive alongside Mr. Thain.
  • Edward S. Lampert, hedge fund manager and chairman of Sears Holdings. A protégé of Mr. Rubin’s in the Goldman risk arbitrage department. (Admittedly, his name has come up because his investment in Citigroup appears to have lost money at the moment.)
  • J. Christopher Flowers, the head of J.C. Flowers & Company, which is now fighting over the buyout of Sallie Mae. Founded Goldman’s financial institutions merger practice.
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Global Equity Marketplace

Published
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admin
on April 14, 2007
in International Finance
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NYC-EuroNext


Seven exchanges. Six countries. Two continents. One global market group.

Above the advertisement of the first truly global exchange group; NYSE Euronext. I love the slogan and love the advertisement even more! The advert displays distinctive buildings of each single country represented in NYSE group including the manor houses in Amsterdam (left corner)!

Check out the official webpage of NYSE Euronext for all informatives concerning this newly created global equity stock exchange. It is created via a merger between the New York Stock Exchange and Euronext.

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Lenovo IBM Marriage

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admin
on May 2, 2005
in Global Strategy and High Tech & Media
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East meet West

Chinese computer maker Lenovo has completed its $1.75 billion purchase of IBM’s personal computer division, creating the world’s third-largest PC maker, the company said Sunday. The deal — one of the biggest foreign acquisitions ever by a Chinese company — is expected to quadruple sales of Lenovo Group Ltd., already Asia’s biggest computer maker, the company said earlier. Complete coverage of this story can be found here and here.

Lenovo was founded in 1984 by academics at the government-backed Chinese Academy of Sciences and first worked out of a small cottage. First set up to distribute equipment made by IBM and other companies, by 1990 it was selling PCs under its own brand name.

IBM now focuses on consulting and software, outsourcing much of its manufacturing. The sale to Lenovo is expected to cut production costs and breathe new life into the PC business, which now accounts for a small portion of IBM’s total sales and profits.

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Adobe buys Macromedia in $3.4B stock deal

Published
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on April 19, 2005
in Global Strategy and High Tech & Media
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Adobe Macromedia

Combining two of the largest makers of software for creating and delivering digital content, Adobe Systems Inc. said Monday it will acquire Macromedia Inc. in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.

Both companies said the long-rumored acquisition was not to consolidate and cut costs but to help Adobe expand into new markets, particularly in the area of providing content to mobile phones and other handheld devices

“This is not a consolidation play. This is all about growth,” said Bruce Chizen, Adobe’s chief executive. “We’re doing this because we believe the combined offerings will be even more compelling to our customers given the challenges they’re going to face in trying to communicate information in this very complex environment.”

Neither company would speculate Monday on actual product plans after the deal is closed.

There is some product overlap, including Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand in graphics design, Adobe GoLive and Dreamweaver for Web page creation, and Photoshop and Macromedia Fireworks for working with photos and other graphics.

Under terms of the deal, approved by the companies’ boards of directors, Macromedia stockholders will receive 0.69 shares of Adobe common stock for every share of their Macromedia common stock.

That will result in Macromedia stockholders owning about 18 percent of the combined company when the deal closes.

Shares of Adobe lost $6.77, or 11 percent, to $53.89, in Monday morning trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Macromedia shares gained $2.76, or 8.3 percent, to $36.21.

The transaction, contingent upon the approval of regulators as well as the shareholders of both companies, is expected to be completed by the fall. The combined company will keep Adobe’s name and San Jose headquarters.

According to Adobe: The combination of Adobe and Macromedia will provide customers a more powerful set of solutions for creating, managing and delivering compelling content and experiences across multiple operating systems, devices and media. Together, the two companies will meet a wider set of customer needs and have a significantly greater opportunity to grow into new markets, particularly in the mobile and enterprise segments.

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