Breakingviews

Marius Kloppers will be hard act to follow at BHP

By Kevin Allison

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Marius Kloppers, BHP Billiton’s outgoing chief executive, mostly deserves his reputation as a savvy boss. Management discipline – along with great assets, a bull market, and not a little luck – underpinned strong shareholder returns during his tenure. Incoming boss Andrew Mackenzie will stick to the formula, but he’ll need more luck to do as well.

RBS share giveaway: a shareholder writes

By George Hay
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

The UK government is toying with the idea of giving away its RBS shares to the public. It should consider the law of unintended consequences. A putative investor sets out what could go wrong in this unhappy letter to the bank’s chairman, after throwing in the towel in 2015.
To: Philip Hampton, RBS chairman
From: Ivor Duff-Holding
Sent: April 1, 2015

Offices Depot and Max lucky to have each other

By Christopher Swann
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Office Depot and OfficeMax are lucky to have each other. Uniting the U.S. purveyors of pens, paper clips and printer toner is about as obvious as it gets in M&A. The potential synergies could be worth more than the market value of the two companies combined. As the Internet ravishes retail, at least this corner can cling to life by merger.

Mega-buyout in UK mobile risks skinny returns

By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

A 10-billion-pound leveraged buyout of Britain’s biggest mobile operator would be dazzling in its sheer ambition. But the payback would be more in short-term glory than long-term financial returns.

New U.S. TBTF plan is too big to succeed

By Daniel Indiviglio
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

A U.S. lawmaker’s new idea to fix too-big-to-fail looks too big to succeed. In theory, Republican Representative John Campbell’s proposal for a new capital cushion at the largest banks could minimize the likelihood of bailouts and justify the lighter regulation he desires. But do the math, and the proposal would mean big U.S. banks issuing more than $2 trillion of junior debt. Other flaws aside, that just doesn’t square with today’s markets.

Herbalife: the ultimate financial plaything

By Robert Cyran
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Herbalife has become the ultimate financial plaything. Carl Icahn cemented the status by joining uppity investors Bill Ackman and Dan Loeb in the war over the nutritional supplements seller. One idea of his is for Herbalife to go private – again. The controversial business model and rich cash flow make it easy for Wall Street to keep imprinting fresh narratives on the company.

M&A advisers get a lot of Valentine’s Day love

By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Cupid emptied his quiver in Wall Street’s direction on Thursday. Over $36 billion of corporate affection, in the form of mergers and takeovers, was announced this Valentine’s Day. Two transactions alone, the buyout of H.J. Heinz by private equity firm 3G Capital and Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and the union of American Airlines parent AMR and US Airways, required the services of two dozen banks and law firms. Hearts must be racing for M&A advisers everywhere.

Heinz deal gives taste of new buyout secret sauce

By Agnes T. Crane
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

Heinz ketchup is giving markets a taste of private equity’s new secret sauce. Buyout firm 3G Capital is swallowing the condiment king for $28 billion with Warren Buffett’s help. In the past, such mega-LBOs required multiple firms to work. With so-called club deals all but dead, the Heinz takeover shows the new way forward.

Comcast ad-libs on winning NBC Universal script

By Jeffrey Goldfarb 
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Comcast has smartly ad-libbed on an already winning script. Back in 2009, the U.S. cable operator engineered a complex, multi-step deal with General Electric to buy NBC Universal. It has now smoothly accelerated and slightly rejigged the acquisition of the 49 percent of the TV and film group it doesn’t own for $16.7 billion. With the financial side of things now sorted, Comcast boss Brian Roberts must prove he’s the right owner.

Barclays takes first step to a re-rating

By George Hay and Dominic Elliott

The authors are Reuters Breakingviews columnists. The opinions expressed are their own.

Barclays has taken the first step towards a re-rating of its persistently underperforming shares. New Chief Executive Antony Jenkins set out on Tuesday how the UK bank would move on from the disastrous era of his predecessor Bob Diamond, which left Barclays as the biggest loser from the Libor-fixing scandal. He’s on the right track – assuming he can carry his employees with him.