Private Equity Bidding Wars: When Capital-rich Funds Compete, Intangibles Win the Deal

April 26 - Knowledge@Wharton - With so much money pouring into private equity funds, competitors for deals are able to match one another easily when it comes to price. Clearly, valuation remains the most important part of any transaction, but in today's capital-soaked private equity environment, bidders must also come up with other, less tangible ways to set themselves apart. According to private equity experts, timing, sound strategy, operational expertise and a track record of successful deals are the new currency in a market where money is no object. Read More.

Mergers changing face of forest industry

April 26 - Vancouver Sun - Mergers and acquisitions -- some of the largest of which involve Canadian companies -- are tearing down the vertically integrated global forest industry and rebuilding it as regionalized, specialty businesses, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers survey.

And British Columbia is at the forefront of this industry-wide transformation, where financial players -- such as New York's Third Avenue Management and B.C. billionaire Jim Pattison -- are influencing the new direction, said PwC partner Craig Campbell, who contributed to the report. Read More.

Europe biggest M&A market so far in 2007 - Dealogic

April 27 - Reuters - Europe has emerged as the world's biggest market for mergers and acquisitions so far in 2007, boosted by blockbuster deals, data from research firm Dealogic showed on Friday. Deals valued at nearly $862 billion involving European targets have been announced so far this year, up from about $453 billion in the same period last year. Read More.

Japan caught in the grip of merger mania

April 29 - Taipei Times - A new law taking effect on Tuesday will make it easier for foreign companies to buy Japanese rivals through share swaps.

Time was when Japan Inc shunned the heady world of corporate raiders as a vulture club anathema to the country's consensus culture. But in a sign of new openness in the world's second-largest economy, merger mania has gripped the country and homegrown firms are now among the hunted as well as the hunters. Read More.

M&A lessons learned: Electronics industry executives share success stories

April 26 - EDN.com - It’s been said that acquisitions are the lifeblood of the electronics business. With talent at a premium and competition going global, it generally makes more sense to buy your way into a segment rather than trying to grow your firm organically. And as with everything else in business, some firms are better at M&A activity than others so why not learn from the masters?

Here is some strategic advice from executives at four companies that have a particularly strong track record when it comes to managing mergers and acquisitions. Read More.

Google, Cisco, or Micro-Merger

April 22 - Red Herring - Technology companies are on the menu. Numbers suggest 2007 could see more gobbled up, as some 58 technology acquisitions have already gone down, a 65 percent jump compared with last year. Marquee names Google and Cisco have mostly stolen the show, however, with such high-profile deals as the search king’s $3.1 billion grab for DoubleClick and the networking giant’s $3.2 billion move for WebEx. But a sideshow to these acts is the phenomenon known as micro-mergers. So-called micro-mergers are those taking place between venture-backed startups buying other venture-backed startups. Read More.

Value of energy mergers soars

April 20 - Canadian Press - Mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas industry totalled $291-billion (U.S.) in 2006, up 16 per cent from 2005, helped by record cash flows, says a global report from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The consulting firm said yesterday the key drivers of the growth in deals were an accelerated consolidation among mid-size energy companies, a rise of national oil companies from Russia, China and India, booming oil services activity and the appetite of private equity. Read More.

Record cash flows and many players fuel oil and gas M&A activity

April 19 - InvestmentExecutive.com - Record cash flows have pushed deal activity in the oil and gas industry to levels rivalling the mega merger highs of 1998.

‘O&G Deals’ -- the first annual analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) of M&A activity in the oil and gas sector ---reports that average deal value in the sector rose 18% in 2006 pushing the aggregate M&A total to US$291bn, up US$41bn some 16% on the previous year.

Gas deals dominated the list of the largest transactions in 2006, with six out of the eight upstream deals in the top ten deal list. This was in contrast to the previous year when only two deals in the top ten of all deals and four of the top 10 of upstream deals were gas dominated. Read More.

Defense Mergers & Acquisitions Tallies $40 Billion in 2006 Deals; 2007 Sizzles With $25 Billion in Deals to Date

April 17 - PRNewswire - Worldwide defense and aerospace companies completed M&A deals worth more than $40 billion in 2006, reports "Defense Mergers & Acquisitions" in its year-end review. The year saw a total of 370 transactions completed. Stuart McCutchan, editor of the DM&A newsletter, commented: "Deal activity reached a level not seen since 1999's all-time high. Defense spending remains at historic highs, and the commercial aerospace marketplace is at full stride. Industry players are flush with cash, and private equity money is pouring into the marketplace." Read More.

Google's DoubleClick Strategic Move

April 14 - BusinessWeek.com - With its $3.1 billion acquisition, the Internet giant secures entry into the promising business of display advertising and thwarts Microsoft in online search.

Three billion dollars? On Apr. 13, Google announced that it would pay $3.1 billion for the advertising outfit DoubleClick. Just two weeks ago, as reports surfaced that the company could go for $2 billion, the price was considered lofty but justifiable. Now, Google is forking over 20 times DoubleClick's estimated revenues of $150 million. And it's paying triple the amount that private equity firm Hellman & Friedman spent when it purchased DoubleClick in 2005—before selling off a couple of pieces of the business. Read More.

Google-DoubleClick deal seen spurring Web ad M&A

April 16 - Reuters - Google Inc.'s $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick Inc. will create a new powerhouse in digital advertising that could spur a wave of takeovers in the online marketing sector. The planned acquisition, unveiled late on Friday, prompted a rally in shares of digital advertising companies on Monday, with aQuantive Inc. jumping 12.2 percent, Real Media Inc. up 10.6 percent and ValueClick Inc. gaining 2.3 percent. Read More.

Enterprise applications market transforming as mergers and acquisitions mount, says IDC

April 12 - Tekrati - The enterprise applications market experienced continuous consolidation as merger and acquisition activities reached a new milestone of 550 deals with an aggregated value of at least $74 billion between 2004 and 2006, according to a new study published by IDC. Deal volumes are likely to increase in the near-term, yet the consolidation has already ushered in a new set of mega-ERP vendors as well as vertical-industry powerhouses. Read More.

Q1 M&A: Is the buyout boom slowing?

April 9 - Financial Week - The total value of announced and completed deals fell 8% last month. Is it time to worry?

Though global M&A this year is currently outpacing 2006 by more than 18% in total value, March data show a remarkable double-digit slowdown in deal-making volume year over year. The number of announced deals dropped 19%, to 4,989, in March 2007, while deals that were completed last month dropped 20%, to 3,487. Notably less grim, but still surprising: The total known value of global M&A transactions fell 8%, to $735 billion. Still, investment bankers have taken home about $2 billion from fees in the first quarter, just a fraction of what most observers believe they’ll earn in what’s expected to be the busiest year so far for mergers and acquisitions. “What was deemed to be possible a year ago when we thought the limits were $25 billion to $30 billion has been easily beaten, particularly in the U.S.,” said Gavin MacDonald, the London-based head of European M&A at Morgan Stanley, the leading M&A adviser in terms of total deal value. Read More. (Click on the link to the full report on the bottom of the page)

M&A Monday: Dow Chemical Buyout Rumored

April 9 - Associated Press - Investors traded heavily on news of mergers and acquisitions Monday, although most of the reports were based on rumors, with few confirmed deals.

Wireless technology company NextWave Wireless Inc. said it will pay $100 million for IPWireless Inc. The purchase price is comprised of $25 million in cash and $75 million in stock. NextWave could pay as much as $135 million more if IPWireless reaches revenue goals over the next two years. Read More.

More steel mergers are likely

April 2 - Purchasing.com - Analysts say industry takeovers have surged—and will continue to—as producers struggle to boost prices and curb surplus inventories. “Had it not been for the consolidation of the last five years, steel prices would not have just fallen recently,” says John Anton, director of Boston-based Global Insight. "They would have absolutely crashed.” Steel prices in February had been at a 17-month low because of a widening slowdown in demand from industrial users. Read More.

Taste for mergers, buyouts unabated

April 2 - TimesUnion.com - Blue-chip stocks might have just suffered their worst quarter in two years, but that didn't stop Wall Street's army of investment bankers from putting together deals at a record pace.

High-profile transactions like the $31.8 billion takeover of energy company TXU Corp. and ongoing bids to buy the Chicago Board of Trade have helped U.S. acquisitions surge 21 percent from last year. That shows private equity firms and expansion-minded companies have not lost their taste for mergers and acquisitions despite stock market volatility. Read More.