Why M&A Is Back, for Now

What's behind the new urge to merge? The November election, for starters

February 22 - BusinessWeek - Despite a credit crunch and recession worries, the dealmakers have returned to Wall Street.

Their current run includes Microsoft's $44 billion bid for Yahoo!. Major U.S. air carriers are reportedly talking about mega-mergers. And a wave of smaller deals has hit the headlines, including Reed Elsevier's $4 billion buyout of ChoicePoint.

So far it's a pale imitation of 2007, when private equity firms used cheap credit to gobble up company after company. That pumped up the stock market in the first half of the year, just before the credit crunch took it down again. Read More.