Posted on November 5, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Counterparties
Tagged: Cisco Systems Inc. , general motors co.

Like a lot of other folks, we followed the twists and turns in the saga of General Motors Co. and its Adam Opel GmbH unit partly through the blog postings of John Smith, GM group vice president for Europe and lead negotiator on the planned divestiture. Having noted the unusual...  Continue reading

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Posted on October 13, 2009 at 11:01 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Counterparties
Tagged: Bruce Bueno de Mesquita , game theory

Check it out: For prices starting at a mere $50,000, you can get important, mathematically-generated insights into how your counterparties in a transaction are likely to behave. The service is offered by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, a professor of politics at New York University, a senior fellow at the Hoover...  Continue reading

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Posted on September 3, 2009 at 10:07 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Counterparties
Tagged: dentsu , microsoft , razorfish

Dentsu Inc. reportedly bid $700 million for Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Razorfish digital marketing unit in August, only to lose out to a $530 million bid from Publicis Groupe SA. The reason, reportedly, was that Dentsu, Japan's largest ad agency, lacked the U.S. commercial presence to compete with the five-year strategic...  Continue reading

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Posted on August 31, 2009 at 1:22 PM
Filed under: Counterparties | Deal International | Detroit Breakdown | Divesting and Restructuring
Tagged: angela merkel , general motors co. , opel

Over on Automotive News Europe columnist Luca Ciferri has a good piece headlined "Seven reasons why GM is considering keeping Opel."Some of the reasons have been mentioned in previous coverage of the long-running auction--for example, the desirability for General Motors Co. (NYSE:GM) of keeping control of Opel in Russia, rather...  Continue reading

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Posted on August 28, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Filed under: Counterparties | Deal International | Detroit Breakdown | Divesting and Restructuring
Tagged: Adam Opel GmbH , general motors co.

"Germany says talks with GM on Opel are far from over," says the Friday morning Reuters headline. Which means that discussions about the sale of the Adam Opel GmbH unit of General Motors Co., already months old, could continue for many more weeks, beyond the Sept. 27 German election that...  Continue reading

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Posted on August 14, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Best Practices | Counterparties
Tagged: due diligence

More noise to filter out as acquirers try to get a bead on trends in the target's business.  Hyper-awareness of all kinds of risk. More senior-level attention to the process. Lots more questions for sellers -- and sellers are answering them. And longer timelines, both to accommodate all this, and...  Continue reading

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Posted on August 6, 2009 at 5:25 PM
Filed under: Counterparties | Deal International | Detroit Breakdown | Divesting and Restructuring | Intellectual property
Tagged: Adam Opel GmbH , general motors co. , magna international inc. , rhj international

John Smith, the group vp who is General Motors Co.'s (NYSE:GM) chief negotiator for the sale of a stake in the company's Adam Opel GmbH unit, has some advice for people following this tangled auction: Don't believe everything you read in the press about it. Specifically, don't put much credence...  Continue reading

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Posted on August 6, 2009 at 9:34 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Best Practices | Counterparties
Tagged: 1-800-flowers.com , sullivan cromwell llc , teten advisors llc

One of the big things strategic acquirers learned in the last M&A boom was how to make due diligence more strategic. That meant looking more thoughtfully at the aspects of the target that are value drivers for the deal -- anything from customer and supplier relationships to sales force compensation...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 15, 2009 at 10:48 AM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Counterparties
Tagged: rio tinto plc.aluminum corp of china

The confrontation over China's arrest of four employees of mining giant Rio Tinto Group plc on spying charges (reported July 9 on The Deal Pipeline -- subscription required) continues to heat up. The Australian reported Wednesday that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (pictured) vowed to stand up for the interests...  Continue reading

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Posted on June 25, 2009 at 11:18 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | CD Community | Counterparties
Tagged: American Appraisal Associates Inc. , Ernst & Young LLP , Evonik Industries AG , Merrill Datasite

Free Thursday afternoon? You still have time to register for what promises to be a lively Webinar discussion of valuation challenges in the current climate, scheduled for 2 p.m. EDT Thursday and sponsored by Merrill Datasite. I'll be moderating, and we'll be taking up many of the topics we examined...  Continue reading

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