Posted on July 3, 2008 at 1:58 PM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Deal International | Sector Watch | Trends
Tagged: Ghana Telecommunications , MTN Group , Telenor , Verizon , Vodacom Group , Vodafone Group

Mobile phone company Vodafone Group plc is buying a 70% stake in fixed-line and mobile operator Ghana Telecommunications Co. from the government for $900 million. Vodafone's revenue from emerging markets surged 45% to 9.35 billion pounds while sales in Europe increased 6.1% to...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 3, 2008 at 1:12 PM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Case Studies | Corporate Strategy
Tagged: General Electric Aviation , General Electric Co. , honeywell international , Pratt & Whitney , rolls-royce plc , United Technologies Corp.

General Electric Co. buys Walter Group, a small Czech turboprop maker, to round out its aircraft engine line and go after archrival Pratt & Whitney in a segment of the business it currently dominates. The story in Thursday's WSJ (subscription required) serves up as neat an example as you'd like...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 3, 2008 at 1:05 PM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy
Tagged: Computer & Communications Industry Association , IBM , Platform Solutions Inc.

Earlier Thursday, we provided some context to IBM Corp.'s acquisition of mainframe rival Platform Solutions Inc. and speculated about the future of PSI's smaller, less expensive mainframes. For analysis of the antitrust issues raised by the transaction, we turn to The Deal's Bill McConnell. IBM says the acquisition is too...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 3, 2008 at 12:00 PM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Intellectual property
Tagged: Amdahl Corp. , Bart Schachter , Blueprint Ventures , IBM , Platform Solutions

With news on Wednesday that IBM would acquire upstart mainframe challenger Platform Solutions Inc., we checked in for an update with Bart Schachter, a managing partner with Blueprint Ventures, which helped PSI spinout of Fujitsu Ltd.-owned Amdahl Corp. back in 1999. It's a story we chronicled last year in Corporate...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 3, 2008 at 11:41 AM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Deal International | Joint Ventures and Alliances | Trends
Tagged: China's Great Wall Motor , Chrysler , Nissan

Chrysler LLC has been going the way of the joint venture of late as it works to stay afloat. Its majority owner Cerberus Capital Management LP is hoping a new deal with China's Great Wall Motor will help. Chrysler is exploring long-term business ties in areas including distribution, components...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 3, 2008 at 11:22 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | CD Community
Tagged: biotech , in vivo , medical devices , pharma

The corporate dealmakers we talk to tend to have short, well-defined lists of things they like to use investment bankers for. See, for example, our post on the fact that Oracle Corp. accomplished its big, hostile takeover of BEA Systems Inc. without i-bankers, and also this very funny column by...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 3, 2008 at 10:22 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Best Practices | Information Technology | Integration
Tagged: Cisco Systems , white paper

Melding communications networks and information technology systems is a big part of integrating any acquisition. The IT folks at Cisco Systems Inc. say they've done it 115 times since 1993 and learned some lessons along the way -- which are presented in this new white paper on post-acquisition IT integration. ...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 3, 2008 at 9:45 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Movers & Shakers | People | Slides
Tagged: Exelon , movers , PSEG , Public Service Enterprise Group , Randall Mehrberg , Stephen Byrd

Newark, N.J., utility Public Service Enterprise Group said Wednesday it named Randall Mehrberg to the newly created post of executive vice president of planning and strategy starting Sept. 8. Mehlberg is the former top legal eagle at  Exelon Corp., where he was part of the team that oversaw Exelon's...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 3, 2008 at 9:35 AM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Trends
Tagged: china , mckinsey & Co.

Gather a group of corporate dealmakers who have partnered with Chinese state-owned enterprises, and you'll hear plenty about what can go wrong. But this piece in McKinsey Quarterly (registration required) points out that an evolving Chinese economy has produced a variety of structures, and argues that some companies with an...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 2, 2008 at 5:19 PM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Deal International | Joint Ventures and Alliances | Trends
Tagged: British Petroleum , Cisco Systems , Manny Fontenla-Novoa , Thomas Cook Group , TNK-BP

Small high-tech deals? Sure. Big energy joint ventures? Think twice. That's one way of parsing the week's deal news out of Russia. Wednesday we hear that Cisco Systems Inc. is eager to get in on the promise of an emerging Russian economy, but still has a preference for a collaborative,...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 2, 2008 at 1:01 PM
Filed under: Integration
Tagged: bank of america , countrywide financial , lasalle bank

You'd think that if anyone knows how to perform due diligence on a portfolio of bank loans, it would be the folks at the acquisition machine known as Bank of America Corp. How many deals did it take for this Charlotte. N.C., bank to become the giant it is today?...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 2, 2008 at 10:58 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy | Deal International
Tagged: Campofrio Alimentacion , Cofco , JBS SA , Smithfield Foods

Soaring feed costs have sparked a wave of cross-border dealmaking in the meat industry, which has riled some farmers and gotten the attention of federal lawmakers. The latest deals involve the world's largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods. As The Deal's Donna Block reported on Tuesday, to reduce its debt, Smithfield...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 2, 2008 at 9:59 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Best Practices | Integration | Trends
Tagged: blogs , Doug Kehring , ibm , oracle corp.

You may find it surprising that I'm calling your attention to a Web post with the title "Blogging the Oracle Middleware Strategy Webcast," and frankly I do too. But bear with me here. This live (well, Tuesday it was live) reportage of a Webcast explaining Oracle Corp.'s technical plans for...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 2, 2008 at 8:41 AM
Filed under: Acquisitions | Corporate Strategy
Tagged: Google , Microsoft , Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc.'s shares were up 10% in pre-market trading Wednesday morning. Why? Apparently, in recent days, Microsoft Corp. -- which pulled its $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo! on June 12 -- has held discussions with Time Warner Inc., News Corp. and others to grab Yahoo!'s search business...  Continue reading

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Posted on July 1, 2008 at 4:54 PM
Filed under: Corporate Strategy | Deal International | Joint Ventures and Alliances
Tagged: Android , Baidu , Google , mInfo , Nokia , Symbian , Widsets

Last week CD reported that Nokia Corp. was paying $412 million to buy the open-source mobile platform Symbian Ltd., with plans to make the target's software available for free to spur new technology development. While it would seem that Nokia was taking aim at Google Inc., which has its...  Continue reading

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