mergers and acquisitions

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Editor &amp; Publisher Will Shut Down
 Editor & Publisher 
 Will Shut Down 
STOP THE PRESSES
Dec 10, 2009 12:16 PM CST

Editor & Publisher Will Shut Down

Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, go to private equity consortium

(Newser) - Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews will shut down after the Nielsen Company today sold off most of its other magazine properties—including Billboard and the Hollywood Reporter—to a new media consortium. Nielsen spun the move as a chance “to strengthen investment in our core businesses,” reports...

Comcast's NBC Deal Gets Help With GE-Vivendi Pact

French outfit will sell Universal stake for $5.8B

(Newser) - Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal got a little closer to reality tonight with news that NBC’s parent company, General Electric, has a deal to buy the 20% of NBCU owned by France’s Vivendi—a stake that threatened to torpedo the sale to Comcast. GE would pay $5....

GM Won't Sell Opel After All
 GM Won't Sell Opel After All 
Nov 3, 2009 7:47 PM CST

GM Won't Sell Opel After All

European operations won't go to Canadian outfit

(Newser) - General Motors backed out today on a deal to sell Opel, its European arm, to a Canadian parts supplier and its Russian banking partners. The GM board’s move reflects an uptick in the auto business, the Financial Times reports, and will also be a blow to the German government,...

Buffett Bets on Recovery, Buys Burlington for $26B

Deal will be Berkshire Hathaway's largest ever

(Newser) - Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to buy up the 77.4% of railroad operator Burlington Northern Santa Fe it didn’t already own for $26 billion, in what would be Warren Buffett’s largest acquisition ever. “It’s an all-in wager on the economic future of the United States,”...

Stanley Adds $4.5B Tool to Its Belt: Black & Decker

Hand-tools giant merges with power-tools leader

(Newser) - Two of America’s iconic tool companies are merging, with Stanley buying up Black & Decker in a deal worth $4.5 billion in stock. Stanley Black & Decker, as it will be known, combined complementary facets of the business: B &D is No. 1 in power tools and,...

Ford Looks to Sell Volvo to China

Geely is only bidder remaining for Swedish subsidiary

(Newser) - Ford put its Volvo unit up for sale last December, and it's narrowed the possible buyers to just one bidder: a Chinese consortium led by Geely, the country's largest private automaker. Geely first approached Ford about the purchase in summer 2008 and is prepared to pay about $2 billion, less...

Google Moves In on Online Music

Search giant to partner with streaming/download services

(Newser) - Google is getting into the online music business. TechCrunch has learned that the search giant will partner with iLike and LaLa to integrate clips into its search engine. An announcement is planned for October 28. Both companies allow streaming on first access, a 30-second clip thereafter, and the option to...

Feds Tear Into Ticketmaster Merger

Antitrust officials weigh concessions for Live Nation deal to pass

(Newser) - Concerned Justice Department are considering blocking a deal that would create a music industry behemoth—unless major concessions are made. Antitrust officials are worried about the effect the proposed Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger would have on consumer cost and may require the companies to make major concessions, insiders tell the Wall ...

Bloomberg Gets BusinessWeek for $5M

Financial-news giant founded by current NYC mayor promises it won't gut mag

(Newser) - Financial-news giant Bloomberg is the winning bidder for BusinessWeek, acquiring the 80-year-old magazine for between $2 and $5 million from parent McGraw-Hill, plus any liabilities associated with the purchase—not exactly a princely sum. “We are not buying BusinessWeek to gut it. We are buying it to build it,...

Comcast Weighs Charging Viewers for Hulu
Comcast Weighs Charging Viewers for Hulu
Analysis
Oct 5, 2009 3:25 PM CDT

Comcast Weighs Charging Viewers for Hulu

Cable giant no fan of free site, and could soon own NBC's part of it

(Newser) - Comcast is no fan of Hulu's business model, and the cable giant could soon own a stake in the site—which means trouble for fans of using it to watch TV shows free. Comcast is in talks with NBC to pool their entertainment offerings in a joint venture that would...

Comcast Near $35B Deal for NBC Universal

Cable giant has been in talks with owner of network for weeks

(Newser) - Comcast is near a $35 billion deal to acquire NBC Universal, which encompasses the network, a movie studio, cable channels and more, sources tell the Wrap. Bankers from the cable giant and General Electric, NBCU’s parent company, met Tuesday after Comcast decided to think bigger than a pursuit of...

Saturn to Shut Down as Penske Deal Collapses

(Newser) - Saturn's hopes of a life after GM ended today when a deal to sell the brand to Penske Automotive fell through. GM said it will now begin shutting down manufacturing and dealership operations. Penske canceled the deal—which could have saved about 13,000 jobs—because it couldn't swing an...

Rise in Mergers Signals Fresh Confidence
Rise in Mergers 
Signals Fresh Confidence 
ANALYSIS
Sep 29, 2009 3:00 AM CDT

Rise in Mergers Signals Fresh Confidence

Chief execs becoming more bullish about recovery prospects

(Newser) - Mergers and acquisitions activity is still way down from pre-financial crisis levels, but a recent flurry of big deals suggests America's chief executives are regaining confidence in their own businesses. Recent mergers have involved strategic buys by big companies instead of the debt-fueled private equity buys seen a couple of...

Feds Probe BofA-Merrill Deal

FBI, Justice Department investigate timing of bonus payments: source

(Newser) - Bank of America's acquisition of Merrill Lynch is the focus of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and Justice Department, sources tell the Charlotte Observer, the bank's hometown paper. The SEC and the AGs of New York and North Carolina have already launched civil probes of the timing of huge...

New Recession Villain: Warren Buffett's Cell Phone

Oracle of Omaha missed message that may have saved Lehman Brothers

(Newser) - If Warren Buffett knew how to use his cell phone, the financial world might be in better shape, blogs Karen Tumulty of Time. Just before Lehman Brothers collapsed last year, a Barclays executive attempting to rescue the firm with an assist from Buffett left a message on the Oracle of...

Skype Sale in Doubt as Founders Sue eBay

Techies alleges copyright violation costing them $75M a day

(Newser) - The founders of Skype are suing eBay and the investor consortium buying the Internet phone company, accusing them of copyright violation, reports the Wall Street Journal. The suit is only the latest bump in eBay's disastrous ownership of Skype and may complicate the planned $2 billion sale. Janus Friis and...

Cadbury Shoots Down $16.7B Kraft Takeover Bid

Watchers suspect undervalued bid could be sweetened

(Newser) - Cadbury today rejected a $16.73 billion takeover bid from food giant Kraft, the Wall Street Journal reports. The candy maker has recently undergone restructuring and divestment that it says make it more valuable—and more attractive to suitors like Kraft. The Cadbury board says the offer “fundamentally undervalues”...

Disney-Marvel Deal Could Signal M&A Recovery

Monday deals push August volume up 40%

(Newser) - Two major deals finished on the last day of August—projected to be the worst month for deal making since 1995—have raised expectations that the mergers and acquisitions market is finally coming out of hibernation, the Wall Street Journal reports. Monday saw Disney buy Marvel for $4 billion and...

Marvel Fans on Disney Deal: 'SOOOO NOT HAPPY!'

(Newser) - Comics fans are just a little miffed by Marvel’s $4 billion acquisition by Disney: “SOOOO NOT HAPPY! Spider-man should not be co-mingling with Goofy,” reads one blog post. The problem, Linda Holmes writes for NPR, is “one of perception: Put simply, Marvel has a cool factor...

To Sell or Not to Sell?
 To Sell or Not to Sell? 



Aug 27, 2009 7:35 AM CDT

To Sell or Not to Sell?

(Newser) - The founders of Twitter keep insisting it's not for sale, but perhaps they should think again, writes Ben Parr of tech blog Mashable. Only two weeks ago Twitter looked smart for refusing its suitors—but then Facebook made a series of big moves, from buying FriendFeed to launching a speedy...

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