Deals wrap: A white knight for Potash?
In an attempt to thwart a $39-billion hostile takeover bid by BHP Billiton, Potash Corp has turned to China to try to find a white knight, according to the Globe and Mail. The Canadian miner is hoping that China’s worries over BHP getting control over the global potash market will lead to a consortium of companies submitting a rival bid, said the Globe.
“It is a viable option,” an unnamed source close to Potash Corp told the Globe, adding the venture posed some significant challenges in finalizing a consortium’s structure. The bid being considered would include some major capital from a Chinese resource company or investment fund, with smaller contributions from international sovereign wealth funds and possibly Canadian players such as pension funds. *View article*
**********
Smartphone maker Motorola, looking to boost its social networking content, has acquired German software company Aloqa GmbH, according to Reuters. The privately held Aloqa, which has developed a location-based social software, has joined Motorola’s Mobility division, which comprises the company’s set-top box and cellphone businesses. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. *View article*
**********
In a move that may portend well for the passage of carbon emissions legislation in the U.S., power company NRG Energy said it would buy privately held cleantech company Green Mountain Energy for $350 million in cash, according to Reuters. *View article*
Deals wrap: Nokia Siemens focuses on North America
Nokia Siemens Networks is buying Motorola’s telecom network equipment business, boosting its position in North America and taking the number two spot in the cut-throat mobile gear market. * View article * View factbox
Business Insider looks back at Nokia passing on a Palm deal and calls it possibly “one of the dumbest moves in handset history.” * View article
Labored over for a year, the Wall Street reform bill may not allow President Barack Obama to reap political rewards – at least not in the near term. Some see the overhaul of the financial regulatory system as too complex to resonate with voters. * View article
With President Barack Obama set to sign Wall Street reforms into law on Wednesday, Roger Altman gives some pointers on how government and business can get along in a NYT Op/Ed article. The New Yorker takes a look at White House special adviser Paul Volcker. VentureBeat asks what effect will the financial reform bill have on angel investing?
Deals wrap: Taking AgBank’s temperature
It is going to be tough for Agricultural Bank of China’s (AgBank) IPO to match the first-day jump in share price enjoyed by its rivals, analysts say. Institutions are expected help stabilize the stock price of the politically sensitive IPO but liquidity, the economy’s health and a flood of new share issues are seen as action against the company. *View article *More coverage *Asia’s top IPOs graphic
Shares in cellphone maker Nokia edged lower as analysts questioned the wisdom of its possible purchase of Motorola’s network equipment unit to boost its weak North American position. *View article
The board of American International Group is expected to meet to consider the future of its AIA unit, with a public float seen as the most likely outcome, sources say. *View article
When is General Motors going public? CEO Ed Whitacre says “soon” but aside from the pressure to show success emanating from the November elections, now may not be the time. *View WSJ article
Four out of five Americans are not convinced the Wall Street reform bill will protect their finances and help avoid another crisis, according to a poll. *View Bloomberg article *More coverage
DealZone Daily
British fashion retailer New Look scrapped its planned flotation. Blackstone dramatically pulled two IPOs this week, blaming weak markets. There has been a string of scrapped IPOs across Europe, involving Belgian, British and German companies.
Motorola wants to split into two companies in the first quarter of next year, one to focus on cellphones and TV set-top boxes, the other on enterprise networking. The plan should give it more focus in the two markets.
Camargo Correa buys an additional 6.5 percent of shares in Portuguese cement-maker Cimpor. It already had a 22 percent stake. In Portugal, a company must make a takeover bid if it holds 33 percent or more in another company.
And this is what competitors are reporting:
Related Cos’ real estate developer Stephen Ross and partners have raised about $1.1 billion to help buy a failed bank, Bloomberg reports.
Belgian specialty metals and materials group Umicore is interested in acquiring the catalyst unit of Germany’s Sued-Chemie, Belgian business daily De Tijd says.
KT Corp, South Korea’s dominant fixed-line operator and No. 2 mobile carrier, agreed to buy a 14.85 percent stake in BC Card for about 100 billion won ($86.79 million), a story in the Korea Economic Daily says.
Pricey Palm attracts attention
If you want to take a bite out of Apple’s piece of the staggeringly huge (but difficult to quantify in $$$ terms) smartphone market pie, you’d better either have the magical new “thing” or be willing to spend to buy it.
As Anupreeta Das reports, Palm – one of the stalwart originals in the mobile handset space — has remade itself into a terrific target with the success of its Pre. Palm’s stock got a jolt this week on talk that Nokia could be considering a bid. But as she explains, Palm may prove to be too pricey a purchase, even for those with deep pockets.
Since introducing the Pre, Dell, Microsoft, Nokia and Motorola have been mentioned as possible suitors. If one of these cash-rich companies was to bid for Palm today, it would be targeting a stock that has quadrupled this year. Complicating matters, “details on how many units it has sold are skimpy, making it difficult to value the success of Palm’s turnaround story,” she reports.
Palm’s market capitalization is $2.4 billion. Based on the average 34 percent premium that technology, media and telecommunications companies have been sold for this year, according to Thomson Reuters data, this means a price tag of about $3.2 billion.
Dell is already in the early stages of buying up Perot Systems, but will still have nearly $7 billion in cash on hand should it choose to go on a spree. Microsoft, while a cagey customer, as shown in its dealings with Yahoo, has buckets more. For big tech players, the price itself is not the problem.
“To them, Palm is a thousand-dollar used model locomotive. Now you have to buy the other cars, and the tracks, and fake trees, etc. You have enough to pay for it, but you don’t even know if it works properly,” said a guy here at Reuters when the subject was being kicked around.
