Deals wrap: News Corp in play?
Reuters’ blogger Felix Salmon asks the question: “Could News Corp end up in play?”
British group Aegis, one of the last independent advertising agencies, could fall prey to a larger rival if it sells its Synovate unit, with major shareholder Vincent Bollore in the role of kingmaker.
American International Group is looking to sell part of its airplane-leasing business through an initial public offering, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The New Yorker profiles Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio.
Deals wrap: BSkyB deal unravels
News Corp will withdraw its bid for British broadcaster BSkyB, the company said. Breakingviews columnist Chris Hughes writes James Murdoch should stage his own tactical retreat and resign from News Corporation.
Medical device maker Kinetic Concepts said it would go private in a nearly $5 billion cash deal with a consortium of private equity firm Apax Partners and two Canadian pension firms.
Electronic Arts Inc, the video game publisher, is buying PopCap Games in a deal worth up to $1.3 billion as it tries to ramp up its social and casual games portfolio and better compete with Zynga.
Deals wrap: J&J’s $21.6 billion orthopedic buy
Johnson & Johnson is to buy Swiss medical devices maker Synthes for $21.6 billion in its largest ever buy, giving J&J a leading position in equipment to treat trauma. Synthes, which posted sales of $3.7 billion in 2010, makes nails, screws and plates to fix broken bones, as well as artificial spine discs. “It is surprising the deal has been struck between cash and shares. The market consensus, and our view, was it would be all cash, so the quality of the take-out is slightly lower than we anticipated,” said Morgan Stanley analyst Michael Jungling.
Phone company CenturyLink is to buy Savvis for about $2.5 billion in cash and stock to beef up its data center business as it looks to meet the growing demand for cloud-based services. The deal comes at a time when regional phone companies like CenturyLink, which acquired rival Qwest for $10.6 billion last year, are looking at ways to boost their business as consumers continue to disconnect their home phones in favor of Internet services and cellphones.
News Corp is expected to receive around 5 or more bids by the end of this week to buy all or part of MySpace, valuing the one-time social networking pioneer at more than $100 million, a source said.
Reputation is dead on Wall Street and a long list of traders responsible for disastrous mortgage bets who have easily found high paying jobs in finance is evidence, writes The New York Times’s Steven Davidoff. And financial clients are not avoiding doing business with banks that were skewered in Congress, including Goldman Sachs, which has been attacked for purportedly taking short positions against its own clients, adds Davidoff.
A growing number of high-end homes are selling at a loss or facing repossession by lenders in Las Vegas, which already has the highest rate of foreclosure filings among large U.S. cities, writes Bloomberg’s John Gittelsohn. In the 15 months through March, at least 25 houses in the Las Vegas area changed hands for more than $3 million, with at least seven doing so through foreclosure or by selling at a loss, adds Gittelsohn, citing two sources.
Deals wrap: AES powers up in U.S. midwest
More consolidation is on the way in the power industry as global power provider AES is buying smaller Ohio-based rival DPL for $3.5 billion. The acquisition will help the company beef up its regulated power business that tends to provide steady returns even during tough market conditions.
Just days after posting a sharp drop in first-quarter profit, Bank of America said it plans to spin off its last large private equity unit, BAML Capital Partners, which has more than $5 billion in assets. It’s the latest in a series of moves the bank has undertaken to comply with new U.S. regulations that limit how much of their own capital banks are allowed to invest.
U.S. based hard-drive manufacturer Seagate Technology is buying Samsung’s loss-making disk drive unit for $1.4 billion in an attempt to take on rival Western Digital, which bought Hitachi’s global hard-drive business last month.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has started talks on forming a consortium to make a bid for Formula One motor racing, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Watch the trailer for HBO’s Too Big to Fail, a star-heavy film adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book about the financial crisis.
from MediaFile:
Tencent, De Wolfe among interested buyers for Myspace
De Wolfe and Murdoch in happier times (Photo: Reuters)
Chinese Internet holding company Tencent, Myspace founder Chris De Wolfe and Myspace's current management team are among the 20 odd names kicking the tires at the once might social network to see whether it's worth buying outright or partnering in some sort of spin-out with current owner News Corp.
Tencent has previously said it is interested in possible US acquisitions.
The names come up in Reuters' Special Report on 'How News Corp got lost in Myspace', a behind the scenes tale on how the focused Facebook beat the partying Myspace. (We have the story in a handy PDF format here)
In the story, we highlight some of the key problems Myspace faced, some well-known and some not often mentioned:
- It was built on a poor technology base which couldn't keep up with the fast-evolving Web 2.0 environment
Deals wrap: A status update from Twitter
Cross Twitter off your IPO watch-list, at least for now. Co-founder Biz Stone told Reuters in an exclusive interview that the social networking service has no plans to go public or raise funds any time in the immediate future, saying his company is making enough money on its own at the moment.
Stone also flat-out rejected a Financial Times report earlier this week that said a J.P. Morgan technology fund was in talks to take a 10-percent stake in the social networking message service. “(The report is) made up,” he said.
News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch’s media empire is about to get a little bit bigger. The British government gave a green light to the company’s planned $14-billion buyout of satellite pay-TV company British Sky Broadcasting after Murdoch and co agreed to spin off a chunk of his Sky News channel into a separate company.
Taxpayers should celebrate that AIG is a step closer today to paying off its bailout debt to the U.S. government. The insurer sold $9.6 billion worth of MetLife shares on Wednesday, which should give it about $6.3 billion in gross proceeds to send back into the Treasury’s coffers.
Expect to see more mega-deals in the mining sector this year. A new report that shows a surge in global mining M&A last year also points out that deal valuations in the sector are set to increase this year as mining companies continue to reap the benefits of rising metal prices. The survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers tracked 2,693 global mining deals in 2010 worth a total of $113 billion.
Deals wrap: Frothy results and scandal
News Corp may have to raise its BSkyB bid as much as 20 percent as its 7-month-old offer gets tied down in a phone-hacking scandal that may undermine the deal. The deal will likely overshadow the company’s quarterly earnings, which are due after the market closes on Wednesday.
Russian companies could have mere weeks to seize a short window to launch IPOs as investor confidence remains fragile and the state mulls a privatization plan that could swamp capital markets.
“If anyone needs proof the tech sector has entered extra-frothy, double-latte territory, it’s best to look past the immense valuations discussed for Groupon or Facebook,” reports The Wall Street Journal.
Expect to see Facebook ramp up its mobile advertising in the next year, reports The 451 Group.
Deals wrap: Racking up the deals
There’s a new swagger among the bosses of emerging market companies as they sign checks for a growing list of acquisitions in both the developed and developing world. And this is just the start.
Strong demand for broadband and high-definition TV lifted first-half profits at bid target BSkyB by 26 percent, increasing pressure on Rupert Murdoch‘s News Corp to secure its takeover deal without delay.
Veteran banker John Kanas gets to cash in big time on one of the most profitable bank buyouts in years when BankUnited goes public on Thursday. Kanas’ expected profits are in stark contrast to the FDIC’s losses from BankUnited.
Skype will hold off on an initial public offering until the second half of the year, The Wall Street Journal reports.
An investigative panel appointed by Congress finds Goldman Sachs made billions of dollars from the emergency bailout of AIG, The Huffington Post reports.
It’s time for Microsoft to get more acquisitive, reports TechCrunch.
Deals wrap: Looking forward to 2011′s IPOs?
Nielsen’s IPO raised more than expected and could set the tone for a rush of big private equity-backed IPOs anticipated in 2011.
Rupert Murdoch has opted to travel to London instead of Davos as News Corp’s $12.5 billion bid for British satellite broadcaster BSkyB hangs in the balance, two sources familiar with his plans said.
Icahn Enterprises extended its tender offer to buy Dynegy, a day after the power producer said it did not receive any competing bids to top Carl Icahn’s $665 million takeover offer.
Lots of cash is sloshing around corporate balance sheets and many predict it will be put to use in M&A. The Deal puts a microscope to expectations of 2011 being a banner year for deals.
Davos is a high-level business conference and the world’s business elite don’t plan on missing it, reports Business Insider.
Deals wrap: Who’s eying Yahoo?
Yahoo shares surged after sources said private equity firms have approached News Corp and AOL to gauge interest in a buyout deal. *View article *View WSJ blog asking if a deal would make sense *NYT’s Andrew Ross Sorkin writes: “A deal is not happening anytime soon.”
Is he a loudmouth corporate raider or the investing world’s version of a Las Vegas Elvis? Reuters interviews hedge fund manager William Ackman to find out. *View article *Full coverage PDF
Private equity firms have been reaping huge dividends from companies they own. A WSJ blog asks if the feeding frenzy has gone too far. *View blog
As Sanofi-Aventis hunkers down for a long battle to buy Genzyme, a proxy battle for control of the biotech firm will become an increasingly real threat, sources tell Reuters’ Jessica Hall. *View article
Fortune.com’s Dan Primack finds one more reason for Warren Buffett to hate private equity. *View article
