Friday, 08 August 2008
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Thursday, 08 May 2008
Movements in share prices may tell us how many of the current slew of proposed takeovers, none of them readily coming to fruition, are poised to reach climax... 
 
Takeover fever is an inexact dengue-like illness; diagnosing it is an inexact science. Yet it is spreading like flu. Here’s the prognosis for the biggest deals in the offing.

1) Bharti-MTN: Bharti down, MTN up on suggestions that others will come in (eg China Mobile). Yes, at a higher price;

2) France Telecom-TeliaSonera: neutral-to-positive with the certainty that both will post Q1 results next week and will comment on the deal. Yes;

3) Deutsche Telekom-Sprint-Nextel: Sprint up, DT down – with the latter in the dock for ‘overpaying’ for past US cellular acquisitions. No.

4) Microsoft-Yahoo!: Yahoo! falling fast with revolting shareholders pushing for a renewed deal with Beast. A case of ‘The Beast that Blinked’ against ‘The Mouse that Whored’ as Yahoo! seeks a better offer. Yes, eventually.

5) Deutsche Telekom-OTE: all but a done deal; a foothold in Marathon, not a Sprint. Yes.

If all five deals went ahead, you’d be looking at more than US$100bn of equity sliding back and forth. So this is a recession? With two out of five deals looking stupid, it may just be dementia.
Jim Chalmers
 
 
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