A flurry of deals makes bankers salivate
FIRMS with interim bosses usually opt for the quiet life, but the lack of a permanent boss did not stop Hewlett-Packard (HP) from launching a bidding war on August 23rd. The computer giant offered to buy 3Par, a data-storage firm, for $1.5 billion, topping the $1.15 billion offered a [...]
The Renault-Nissan alliance has become a template for the car industry
EVER since the forging of Renault’s alliance with Nissan in 1999, Carlos Ghosn, the boss of both carmakers, has been on the lookout for new partners. He passionately believes that the alliance model he has created is superior both to the full mergers the car [...]
The insurance industry’s biggest-ever acquisition has prompted the largest-ever rights issue: AIG and Prudential are both playing for huge stakes
INSURANCE is a pretty stodgy business. This week’s agreement by Prudential of Britain to buy AIG’s Asian life-insurance operations, AIA, is anything but. If the $35.5 billion deal goes through—and given the convulsions in both companies’ [...]
Kraft goes hostile with its bid for Cadbury, a British confectioner
CHOCOLATES are universally recognised as a potent means of winning over hearts. And usually a suitor who presents a bigger box of treats is thought to have a better chance of success than one who brandishes a smaller one. So the decision of Kraft Foods [...]
The European Commission again objects to a deal approved by the United States Department of Justice
ONCE every few years, it seems, the European Commission likes to flex its muscles by going head to head with the toughest, most uncompromising American chief executive it can find. In 2001 it took on the legendary prizefighter “Neutron Jack” [...]
Regulators may block a big technology tie-up, but their case is not convincing
FOR a brief period many hoped that trustbusters in Europe and America would start playing in tune. During the eight years of the Bush administration, the European Commission’s competition police took a notably more activist approach than their American counterparts. With a new [...]
Comcast moves closer to creating a content-and-distribution behemoth
IT SEEMED for a while as though the media business had dispensed with swagger. As the markets push their companies around, moguls such as Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation have taken to complaining about the power of Google. A new book, “The Curse of the Mogul”, tries to [...]
GM’s decision to keep Opel has left Germany fuming
AFTER General Motors’ dramatic U-turn on November 3rd over the sale of its European subsidiary, Opel/Vauxhall, its chief executive, Fritz Henderson, came to Germany this week to begin repairing relations with Angela Merkel’s government and with the country’s angry unions. Both have little option other than to [...]
BA and Iberia at last agree to get together to sort out their problems
LIKE two drowning men Iberia and British Airways have long eyed each other as potential means of mutual buoyancy. The rate at which the airlines have been sinking at last forced them into each other’s arms on Thursday November 12th. BA [...]
A possible takeover heralds a shake-up of the petrochemical industry
AT A conference earlier this year Gary Adams of CMAI, a petrochemical consultancy, likened the petrochemicals industry to a $100 bill that had been crumpled, dirtied and trampled underfoot. The economic slowdown has squeezed demand for basic chemicals and plastics such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which [...]
