M & A wrap: Who is Mark Pincus?
As Zynga Inc aims to list shares on the Nasdaq stock exchange this week in an initial public offering that will value the company at around $9 billion, investors eyeing the online games developer will be wise to understand its chief executive Mark Pincus.
Bloomberg uses an one-on-one meeting between Pincus and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg last year to show Pincus’s negotiating prowess.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which has approval for a $65 billion bankruptcy liquidation plan, will ask a judge to let it use $1.3 billion of the estate’s money to increase its stake in Archstone, its biggest real estate asset, Bloomberg reports, citing a person familiar with the planned bid.
Bank takeovers should face deeper scrutiny and directors be more accountable for their actions, Britain’s finance watchdog said in a long-awaited report into Royal Bank of Scotland’s near collapse.
Dozens of interviews conducted by the DealBook reveal that Jon Corzine played a much larger, hands-on role in MF Global’s high-stakes risk-taking than has previously been known.
M & A wrap: Icahn bids for Commercial Metals
“Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has launched his $1.73 billion unsolicited buyout offer for Commercial Metals Co., threatening to take the company’s board of directors to court if it does not allow the purchase,” the Washington Post reports.
Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting Commercial Metals has changed its mind and will review Carl Icahn’s $1.73 billion buyout offer after all, just days after dismissing it as “substantially undervalued” and “opportunistic.”
“The SEC served notice that it will likely sue billionaire Phil Falcone and other people affiliated with his Harbinger hedge fund,” the Wall Street Journal’s Deal Journal reports, while the impetus is yet to be revealed.
The U.S. Justice Department said on Friday it would seek to stay or dismiss its lawsuit to stop AT&T Inc’s purchase of T-Mobile USA because AT&T withdrew its application with the Federal Communications Commission, which must approve the deal.
Two of Canada’s largest telecom and media companies will take control of the lucrative Toronto sports empire that owns the NHL’s Maple Leafs in a $1.30 billion deal that brings more premium content to their competing sports channels, Reuters reports.
M & A wrap: Corzine: I don’t know where the money is
Former MF Global chief Jon Corzine apologized to customers, employees and investors who have suffered because of the brokerage firm’s collapse, but said he does not know where missing customer money is. “Their plight weighs on my mind every day — every hour,” Corzine said in lengthy remarks prepared for delivery before a House panel.
New York Times’ Deal Professor has 10 questions for Corzine.
Alibaba Group is seeking up to $4 billion in debt financing, sources told Reuters, in a deal expected to help the Chinese e-commerce giant buy back a 40 percent stake in the company owned by Yahoo.
Private equity firms are looking to hire in growth areas so that they deliver the returns investors seek.
Swisher Hygiene, already dubbed by the Deal Journal as the country’s most acquisitive public company of 2011, has struck yet another deal.
M & A wrap: D.Boerse, NYSE mull spin-off
Deutsche Boerse and NYSE could spin off parts of their derivatives arms to create a third-party competitor as a way to allay anti-trust concerns about their $9 billion merger, two sources told Reuters.
J.C. Penney bought a 16.6 percent stake in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc in a $38.5 million deal.
Banks want regulators to give them more time to liquidate investments in certain private equity funds under the Volcker rule, arguing that without more leeway they will have to hold “fire sales.”
Yahoo has requested more information and better terms from potential buyers of a minority stake in the company as the board weighs various proposals at hand, the WSJ reports.
Bloomberg reports Jive Software, a social-networking software maker, has every reason to lift its initial public offering price after billion-dollar cloud-computing acquisitions led by SAP AG and Oracle Corp.
M & A wrap: MF Global workers sue Corzine
Past and present MF Global employees sued ex-CEO Jon Corzine and other executives over alleged misrepresentations they say destroyed the value of the company’s stock. Meanwhile, the WSJ reports that Corzine had rebuffed internal warnings on risks.
An independent panel issued a damning report on a $1.7 billion accounting scandal at Japan’s disgraced Olympus Corp, urging legal action against the executives responsible for the cover-up and the replacement of other board members who knew.
Blackstone’s Asia-Pacific chief, Michael Chae, told the 2012 Reuters Investment Outlook Summit that he sees China and Southeast Asia as top destinations for Asia investments next year. “There’s an above-average level of uncertainty around macro conditions in this region and globally, which makes it a really intellectually interesting time to be alive and to be investing,” he said.
European competition authorities are ready to block the $9 billion merger of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Boerse unless the companies agree to new asset sales, Le Monde newspaper reports.
As 2011 is drawing to a close, the Deal Journal finds out which company has been the busiest acquirer of the year?
M & A wrap: Olympus hid billion in losses
An investigative panel has found Japan’s disgraced Olympus Corp hid up to $1.67 billion in losses from its investors, but is likely to say there is no evidence of involvement by organized crime in the cover-up, a source says.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy estate is close to naming a new board of directors to help finish winding down the defunct financial firm, the WSJ reports.
Metals recycler Commercial Metals Co rejected billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s buyout bid, saying the offer substantially undervalues the company and is “opportunistic.”
Online gaming firm Nexon Co fixed the price for its $1.2 billion initial public offering in Tokyo at the mid-point of a pre-set range, following rival Zynga in settling for a more conservative valuation amid tough stock market conditions.
“Buffeted by lackluster profits and turmoil in the global markets, Wall Street is bracing for one of the worst bonus seasons in recent memory,” according to the New York Times’ DealBook.
M & A wrap: Game on for Zynga
Zynga plans to sell an 11.1 percent stake in a scaled-back initial public offering that would value the Facebook game maker at as much as $9 billion on a fully diluted basis.
For US Airways, the merger-hungry fifth-largest U.S. airline, a bankrupt American Airlines may present an irresistible takeover target, but many in the aviation world think the headaches and hassles of consolidation are not worth the payoff of such a tie-up.
Hedge funds are steering clear of the big bets they are famous for, rattled by worries that the lenders who bankroll their most lucrative plays will soon turn the taps off.
Warren Buffett appears to have traded in his heavy artillery for a pea shooter, reports The Street.
Led by this week’s global onslaught of deals, the mining industry yet again tops the list for weekly activity. Get an overview of the week in M&A, capital markets and syndicated loans from the Investment Banking Scorecard.
M & A wrap: Bidding for all of Yahoo
Blackstone Group and Bain Capital are preparing a bid for all of Yahoo with Asian partners in a deal that could value the Internet company at about $25 billion, a source familiar with the matter said.
“Yahoo’s directors are leaning toward selling a minority stake in the company to an investor group instead of selling the business outright, after a meeting of the company’s board on Wednesday, according to people briefed on the matter,” reports the NYT’s DealBook.
“AT&T Inc. and Deutsche Telekom AG, the parent of T-Mobile USA, have discussed an alternative transaction—forming a joint venture that would pool network assets from the two U.S. wireless carriers—if their current acquisition deal falls apart,” the WSJ reports.
Bloomberg profiles Tom Horton, the new chief executive officer at AMR.
Facebook games developer Zynga is seeking a lower-than-expected $10 billion valuation for its initial public offering, which is to be priced on December 15, two people close to the process said.
Benzinga weighs in on the topic of the moment: What’s Facebook worth?
M & A wrap: An offer for Yahoo
“A group of investors led by private- equity firm Silver Lake offered to buy a minority stake in Yahoo! Inc. for about $16.60 a share,” Bloomberg reports.
AT&T will struggle to find buyers for any asset sale big enough to salvage its $39 billion deal to buy T-Mobile USA, with most likely buyers Leap Wireless and MetroPCS Communications lacking the cash, writes Sinead Carew.
Glencore is in talks with Spanish refiner Cepsa on a merger of oil operations that would be a first major step towards transforming the commodity trader’s energy division into a vertically integrated oil company, industry sources said.
Canada’s competition regulator has dealt a sharp blow to a C$3.8 billion proposal to take over TMX Group, voicing “serious concerns” about a deal that would bring most of the country’s financial exchanges under one roof.
“Facebook has strong incentives to go public next year. But it may end up with an offering at a less-than-opportune time or a valuation of less than $100 billion. Facebook’s own choices have left it without full room to maneuver,” writes The Deal Professor.
M & A wrap: American Airlines files for Chapter 11
American Airlines and its parent company AMR Corp filed for bankruptcy after failing to win a labor deal with pilots and suffering from mounting fuel costs.
Thomas H. Lee Partners is interested in buying the U.S. operations of Yahoo, breaking away from other bidders that are for now eyeing either a minority stake or teaming up with the Internet giant’s partners in Asia, sources familiar with the matter said.
Facebook is now targeting a time frame of April to June 2012 for a initial public offering, raising possibly $10 billion, the WSJ reports.
The chances of an AT&T-T-Mobile merger grow dimmer by the day, but there may yet be hope on the horizon for the telecommunications giants – next year’s election.
“Social gaming company Zynga is planning to begin its IPO road show this coming Monday,” Fortune reports.
