It's rather curious that the U.S. press went crazy over a weekend report from
the
Financial
Times and a Swedish newspaper that Ford Motor Co. may sell Volvo,
considering the rumor of a BMW AG buyout surfaced on auto enthusiast Web sites
Autocar and AutoBlog three weeks earlier, which
Dealscape
highlighted at the time.
A Google News search shows the new story appeared on over 60 different news
outlets, including
CNBC,
The
Detroit News and
MarketWatch.
Why did the U.S. press jump on the news now?
Two factors come to mind: Memorial Day and Chrysler. The U.S. holiday may have
led the mainstream American press to pick up the story three weeks later.
Perhaps weekend news staffs thought the story was the next Chrysler deal
waiting to happen. Not wanting to overlook it, the story was played up as the
next big auto deal ... and it might be. —Matthew Wurtzel
See
story from the FT's Mergermarket.com
See
post from Dealbook
See earlier post
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