Posted on October 28, 2009 at 2:18 PM
Filed under: Deal International | Divesting and Restructuring | Intellectual property

On Wednesday, when Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F) named a group led by Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. Ltd. as the preferred bidder for its Volvo Car Corp. division, there remained a big hurdle for any deal to overcome: how to safeguard Ford's intellectual property rights. The Deal Pipeline...  Continue reading

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Posted on October 14, 2009 at 9:10 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Intellectual property | Law
Tagged: Gizmo5 , Janus Friis , Niklas Zennstrom , Skype

Skype may spend $50 million on an acquisition as it faces a lawsuit that targets the very foundation of the voice-over-Internet-protocol company. Citing multiple sources, TechCrunch.com says Skype is in negotiations to buy peer-to-peer VoIP startup Gizmo5, which has a Skype-like service with about 6 million users.The backstory: Throwing a...  Continue reading

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Posted on September 21, 2009 at 1:25 PM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Intellectual property
Tagged: Marvel Entertainment Inc. , Walt Disney Company

Well, maybe not. Turns out Jack Kirby, the legendary comic book artist who co-created such Marvel heroes as Iron Man and the X-Men, drew this muscle-bound Mickey Mouse for a coffee table tribute to Mickey in the early 1990s, according to a Web site called the Jack Kirby museum. Still,...  Continue reading

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Posted on September 18, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Intellectual property
Tagged: Amgen Inc. , ImmunoGen Inc.

Amgen Inc. has deepened its presence in oncology -- a buzzing sector -- with an exclusive licensing deal with ImmunoGen Inc. (NASDAQ:IMGN), a developer of potential cancer therapies. Amgen will pay $1 million up-front and $34 million in potential milestone payments, plus royalties, to use ImmunoGen's technology to develop anticancer...  Continue reading

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Posted on September 17, 2009 at 8:38 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Intellectual property
Tagged: eBay , global index , Janus Friis , Mike Volpi , Niklas Zennstrom , Silver Lake , Skype

Tech M&A may be resurgent, but that doesn't make doing deals any easier. Take eBay Inc.'s (NASDAQ:EBAY) sale of 65% of Skype for instance. Skype co-founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have sued eBay and the investor group paying about $2 billion for the VoiP company over an IP...  Continue reading

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Posted on September 10, 2009 at 11:07 AM
Filed under: Intellectual property
Tagged: Cadbury , Hershey Co. , Kraft Foods Inc. , licensing , NYSE:CBY , NYSE:HSY , NYSE:KFT

If Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE:KFT) wins Cadbury plc (NYSE:CBY), it still might face a hole in its U.S. pantry. Evidently, Cadbury and Hershey Co. (NYSE:HSY) are joined at the hip via a 1988 licensing agreement that could leave Kraft without many of Cadbury's key products, such as its famous Creme...  Continue reading

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Posted on September 8, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Intellectual property
Tagged: Jim Hensen Company , Marvel Entertainment Inc. (NYSE:MVL) , Pixar Animation Studios Inc. , Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS)

Since the Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) announced its deal to acquire Marvel Entertainment Inc. (NYSE:MVL) for $4 billion last week, the deal has been most heavily compared to Disney's $7.4 billion buyout of Pixar Animation Studios Inc. in 2006. However, the pairing of Disney and Marvel may actually end up...  Continue reading

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Posted on September 1, 2009 at 10:02 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Best Practices | Corporate Strategy | Intellectual property
Tagged: marvel entertainment inc. , walt disney co.

It's a good guess that the most complicated part of the due diligence for Walt Disney Co.'s (NYSE:DIS) acquisition of Marvel Entertainment Inc. (NYSE:MVL) involved Marvel's extensive licensing agreements. Initial accounts of the $4 billion deal (The Deal Pipeline subscribers will find ours here) have noted Marvel's various film deals...  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 July 30, 2009 at 11:07 AM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Divesting and Restructuring | Intellectual property
Tagged: ericsson ab , nortel networks , research in motion ltd

Thursday's update on the battle for the wireless assets of bankrupt Nortel Networks Corp. comes from the Ottawa Citizen, where James Bagnall crisply makes the case that "Nortel needs to get its businesses in the right hands before all is lost."Quick recap: As reported on The Deal Pipeline (subscription required),...  Continue reading

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