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Russell Simmons’ Global Grind Buys CelebrityTweet.com | paidContent
"Hip hop entrepreneur Russell Simmons’ Global Grind has purchased CelebrityTweet.com, which aggregates Tweets from celebrities, including Simmons (pictured) himself. Global Grind features a wide array of coverage geared towards hip hop fans, including videos, a number of celebrity blogs and political news. The company says it will continue to maintain CelebrityTweet.com as an independent site, although it will also now appear as a feed on the Global Grind home page. The company has landed SoBe Lifewater as a sponsor for both CelebrityTweet.com and its celebrity blogs. No word on a purchase price, although the acquisition comes only two months after Global Grind raised $2.6 million in new funding. More in the release here."
Kraft will maintain acquisition 'discipline' (Dealscape - M&A)
"Kraft Foods Inc.'s (NYSE:KFT) third-quarter earnings report on Tuesday appears to have undermined its $16 billion hostile takeover proposal for Cadbury plc (NYSE:CBY), with sales declining a worse-than-expected 5.7% even as earnings per share comfortably exceeded consensus forecasts.
The Northfield, Ill., food group was expected to artfully deploy the figures to argue that it is the best manager for Cadbury; Cadbury itself employed its own trading bulletin to full effect last month to assert its independence. Instead, the report, coupled with Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld's insistence Tuesday that she will maintain acquisition "discipline" has tempered expectations Kraft will lodge a formal bid by the U.K. Takeover Panel's Monday deadline.
Analysts at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) are notably undecided, with U.K.-based Pablo Zuanic, who covers Cadbury, voicing a "growing belief" that Kraft will walk away as he cut his price target on Cadbury by 5% to 780 pence ($12.89). But colleagues Terry Bivens and Jason English, who cover Kraft for the bank from New York, said: "We continue to believe that Kraft will make a formal offer by the deadline." They said that Kraft may initially offer less than the 800 pence to 820 pence per share that they estimate it will ultimately need to pay for Cadbury.
Kraft's original offer for the maker of Dairy Milk chocolate and Trident gum was worth 745 pence per share as of Sept. 4, breaking down into 300 pence per share in cash and 0.2589 of a Kraft share. The proposal was worth 735.7 pence as of Tuesday's close, while Cadbury shares were trading at 772.5 pence by early afternoon in London on Wednesday.
Some analysts think that Kraft might walk away and leave Cadbury to feel the pain of rising import prices before returning with a bid next year. Could Rosenfeld's insistence Tuesday that she will impose a range of conditions on the Cadbury purchase -- including that the deal be cash accretive by year two -- be a prelude to her doing just that? - Laura Board"
Naspers Buys Majority In Brazilian Online E-Commerce Group Buscape For $342 Million | paidContent
Naspers, the South African media giant, is continuing on its online acquisition spree across Europe and now Latin America: it has acquired 91 percent stake in Brazilian online e-commerce group Buscape.com, for $342 million. Buscape provides comparison shopping solutions to more than 100 portals and websites in Latin America, including Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Globo and Abril, among others. It also rund QueBarato, a free-classifieds network in Latin America. In addition it has an affiliate advertising network named Lomadee, an e-commerce research business, eBit, and a fraud risk assessment service, FControl.
Naspers already has two investment in the local market, Abril and Compera nTime, and says has a good grasp of the market. Details in release.
Australia’s Yahoo7 Buys Travel Site TotalTravel for $17 Million
Yahoo7, the online portal in Australia that is a joint venture between Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and Channel Seven, has done its first acquisition since it launched in 2006: it has bought online travel information site Totaltravel.com for $17 million. The travel site will be merged with Yahoo7’s own travel website and use Totaltravel.com’s large audience and subscriber base to promote Channel Seven shows including The Great Outdoors, the story says. Totaltravel has sites in Australia, New Zealand, and smaller sites in UK and U.S.; it was founded in 1999 and reports say has revenues of about $8.5 million a year with profits of about $2.5 million. Totaltravel.com says it has 167K listings across travel categories such as accommodation, restaurants, events, shops and attractions, and direct users to those for a referral fee.
The local management at Yahoo7 is looking at more acquisitions, the CEO said.
Kraft Covets Cadbury's Know-How in India
Cadbury's hold on consumers in India and other emerging markets was a factor in Kraft's $16.73 billion takeover offer for the U.K. candy maker. A successful bid would boost Kraft's presence in two fast-growing parts of the global confectionery market: developing countries and the chewing-gum business.
Kraft, which makes the Milka, Toblerone and Cote d'Or brands, already has sizable chocolate businesses in Europe and Latin America. But in reaching consumers in overseas growth markets, Cadbury has had a double advantage: It is deeply entrenched in British Commonwealth countries such as India, where it has been selling chocolate for more than 60 years.
Cadbury's 2002 acquisition of several chewing-gum brands from Pfizer Inc. has yielded a strong presence in Latin America. One of those brands, Trident, was Cadbury's main growth motor in South America in the first half of this year. In Mexico, Cadbury's sales of about $500 million far outpace Kraft's sales of $350 million there, according to Andrew Lazar, an analyst with Barclays Capital.
Holcim Sells Some Latin American Stakes to Argos - DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com
Following the nationalization of its operations in Venezuela last year, the cement maker Holcim is selling its shareholding in businesses in Panama and the Caribbean to its joint venture partner Argos for $157 million, Reuters reported.
“As a consequence of the nationalization of Holcim Venezuela, the long-term economics of supplying Holcim-produced clinker and cement to the grinding stations and terminals in Panama and the Caribbean is no longer viable,” Holcim said.
Holcim, the world’s second largest cement maker, said the interests it was selling contributed a total of 107 million Swiss francs ($99 million) to the group’s net sales of 25.2 billion francs in 2008.
Last year, the Venezuelan government agreed to pay $552 million for 85 percent of Holcim’s operation there.
Boston Globe Said to Draw 2 Early Bids
Two groups led by local businessmen have submitted preliminary offers to buy The Boston Globe from The New York Times Company, The Globe reported, citing people with direct knowledge of the offers.
One group is led by Stephen G. Pagliuca, a private equity executive who is a co-owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team, and Jack Connors, the co-founder of the Boston advertising firm Hill Holliday, the newspaper said. That group reportedly envisions taking a “civic approach” to running The Globe, which would involve a nonprofit foundation.
The other bidding group is said to be led by Stephen E. Taylor, a former Globe executive who is a member of the family that sold the newspaper to The New York Times Company in 1993 for $1.1 billion.
The Times Co. is expected to review the bids and decide which bidders to invite to the next round. Bidders would be expected to submit more specific proposals, and The Times Company would be expected to provide additional information, walk-throughs of the facilities and other usual steps in buying a business.
Reached by The Globe, a Times Company spokeswoman declined to comment.
Hammering Out a Deal: VW Raises Offer for Porsche
The future of Porsche may be decided soon. Volkswagen has increased its offer for a 49.9 percent stake to over 4 billion euros, SPIEGEL has learned. But Porsche's CEO Wendelin Wiedeking favors an investment by Qatar, which is bidding 7 billion euros for a stake of over 25 percent plus Porsche's VW share options.
Sun Valley Chatter: Vivendi and NBC?
The latest deal rumor to bubble up from the Allen & Company’s media gabfest in Sun Valley is that French media giant Vivendi may be mulling a move to buy NBC Universal, according to a report in The New York Post.
When General Electric bought a swath of Vivendi’s Universal assets in 2004 to create NBC Universal, Vivendi ended up with a 20 percent stake in the newly-formed entertainment business.
Now, The Post said, citing undisclosed sources, lunchtime chatter at the confab has it that Vivendi Chief Executiv Bernard Levy wants to take full control of NBC Universal and plans leverage his company’s put option on the stake to do so.
Under the terms of the deal between Vivendi and G.E., the French company can force G.E. to buy out its NBC Universal stake. If Vivendi decides to do that, G.E. would have to come up with a few billion dollars or risk Vivendi selling to a potentially hostile third party, The Post noted.
G.E. is not cash-poor, but it is currently carrying a large debt load, the newspaper said, making such a deal unpalatable.
Updated: Digital Media M&A Activity Slowed To Crawl In H109; Strategics Rule
If case you needed confirmation, yes, it was a miserable first half of the year for dealmaking in digital media. There was $5.4 billion worth of deal activity in the Online Media & Technology and Marketing & Interactive Service segments combined, which was a drop of 76 percent from the $22.5 billion figure during the same period in 2008, according to the Jordan, Edmiston Group. In all, there were about 300 media deals in the first half of the year (of which digital media accounted for about half) vs 426 in the same period a year ago. The media investment bank did say that there have been some signs of life in the past few weeks.
—Online media and technology had the most activity among the 12 categories JEGI looks at. There were 84 transactions over the past six months, worth a total of $1.3 billion.
—Marketing and interactive services was the second-most-active sector in H109. There were 66 deals that were done for $877 million. The absence of any “multi‐hundred million-dollar” acquisitions was the main reason for the drop off from last year in this sector, though there were a few notable deals in the past few weeks, including Sapient’s $50 million purchase of Nitro Group, and Microsoft’s $40 million sale of Greenfield Online’s surveys unit to online research panel provider Toluna.
—Mobile heats up: The continued growth of the iPhone and the emergence of smartphone competitors helped push M&A in the mobile arena up 46 percent. JEGI sees mobile social nets and mobile content providers as key areas of investment.
Updated: Rafat adds: Petsky Prunier, another investment bank in the media and marketing space, also came out with their Q209 M&A and investment report, and from their data set—Interactive Advertising, Advertising and Promotion, Out-of-Home and Specialty Media, Marketing Technology, Digital Media, Software and Information and Marketing Services—of 150 transactions for a total of $2.4 billion, in M&A sector strategic buyers accounted for the largest portion with 69 transactions (46 percent of total) wor
Thomson Merger News
ArvinMeritor Inc (ARM.N) is selling its stakes in two businesses that make auto parts such as shock absorbers and springs, the first deals reached in a year-long effort to divest its unprofitable car parts unit.
Shares of ArvinMeritor jumped 11.7 percent in morning trade.
The car and truck parts maker, which has been working to sell its parts business for light vehicles since last year, said on Thursday it had reached a deal to sell its 57 percent stake in a unit that makes coil springs and torsion bars to joint venture partner Mitsubishi Steel Manufacturing Co.
GM CEO Says U.S. Looking for Quick Sale
General Motors Corp. went to court Tuesday to ask a judge to approve its sale to the U.S. government with Chief Executive Fritz Henderson testifying that the government is demanding a quick sale.
The U.S. can walk away from the deal if a federal bankruptcy judge doesn't approve the sale by July 10. Mr. Henderson said the deadline was set by the Treasury Department, which will become the majority owner of the new company
G.M. Said to Seek Alternate Buyers for Opel
As General Motors and the auto-parts company Magna International struggle to conclude a deal for Opel, G.M. is talking to other potential buyers in a bid to win better terms, according to the officials involved in the negotiations, The New York Times’s Nelson D. Schwartz and David Jolly report.
While Magna, based in Toronto, remains the favored buyer of the German government, G.M. has pressed for the right to regain control of Opel in several years, according to the officials, but Magna has so far refused to budge.
General Motors close to Opel deal with RHJ
elgium-based RHJ International (RHJI.BR) is close to a deal to buy a stake in Opel after talks between parent General Motors (GMGMQ.PK) and preferred bidder Magna International (MGa.TO) hit snags, the Financial Times reported.
Citing a person close to the sale, the report said holding company RHJ and GM could sign a memorandum of understanding this week, and noted GM was seeking bids from rival suitors despite a preliminary deal with Canadian auto parts group Magna.
Pfizer offers EU remedies over planned Wyeth buy
U.S. drugmaker Pfizer (PFE.N) has offered remedies aimed at tackling concerns that its $68 billion planned takeover of rival Wyeth (WYE.N) may be anti-competitive, the European Commission said on Tuesday.
The Commission, which polices competition in the 27-country European Union, said in a daily list of planned mergers under scrutiny that it had extended the deadline for its review of the deal to July 20 from July 6.
Brazil's Bradesco may buy stake in insurer-report
Brazil's second-largest private-sector bank, Bradesco (BBDC4.SA), is in talks to buy a minority stake in insurer Porto Seguro seeking to prevent rivals from gaining a foothold in the last independent insurer in the country, a local newspaper reported on Tuesday.
An agreement with Porto Seguro (PSSA3.SA), the country's largest automobile insurer, would position Bradesco as the second-biggest shareholder in the company, after controlling shareholder Jayme Garfinkel, Valor Economico reported, without saying how it obtained the information.
Televisa quiere 60% de fusión entre la Sexta y Prisa
La empresa mexicana Televisa mandó a sus representantes a España para intentar obtener el 60% de la firma que se creará tras la fusión de La Sexta, televisora donde tiene una participación del 40%, con La Cuatro, la televisora propiedad de Prisa.
Representantes de Televisa estuvieron hace apenas dos semanas en Madrid para lanzar un mensaje claro a la cúpula de Imagina, plataforma creada por Mediapro y el Grupo Árbol y que negocia la creación de un holding audiovisual con Prisa: hay que luchar por un 60% de la sociedad conjunta, según publica el medio español El Confidencial.
Porsche Rejects Volkswagen’s Offer
Porsche on Monday rebuffed Volkswagen’s proposed purchase of 49 percent of the sports car maker as part of a merger, saying a sale of the unit would incur a financial penalty that rendered the deal impractical, The New York Times’s David Jolly reports.
“It’s not that we’re rejecting the offer,” a Porsche spokesman, Frank Gaube, said. “It’s that the offer is unfeasible.”
As a first step to merger, Volkswagen has called for Porsche to sell it a 49 percent in its sports car business for as much as 4 billion euros, or $5.6 billion, the newsweekly Der Spiegel reported over the weekend without identifying its source. The Qatari Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund that has been negotiating financial aid to Porsche, would then buy options from Porsche that give it a right to about 20 percent of VW shares.
Anglo seeks Brazil stake buyer
Anglo American is sounding out potential investors for its Brazilian ore assets as it prepares a detailed response to Xstrata's £40bn (€47bn) merger proposal and accelerates the search for a new chairman.
The UK-based miner has held informal discussions with Gulf Industrial Investment Company, the Bahrain pellet producer, and Sojitz, the Japanese conglomerate, about taking a stake of up to 30 per cent in MMX Minas-Rio, the Brazilian iron ore producer it acquired last year for £3.5bn.
The move to sell part of Minas-Rio comes as Anglo steps up the hunt for a new chairman to replace Mark Moody-Stuart as part of its plan to strengthen its defences against Xstrata.
John Parker, chairman of National Grid; Paolo Scaroni, chief executive of Eni; and Jeroen van der Veer, the outgoing head of Royal Dutch Shell, are all thought to be on the short-list. The board is expected to decide on its preferred candidate in the next few weeks.
IAC Unloads Majority Stake In E-Mail Newsletter VSL To Observer Media
Continuing to pare back on its emerging businesses, IAC (NSDQ: IACI) has unloaded its majority stake in the VeryShortList, an e-mail newsletter guide similar to DailyCandy, to Jared Kushner’s Observer Media Group, publisher of the NY Observer.
VSL’s assets are going into a joint venture with Observer as the majority partner and IAC keeping a stake. No other terms were disclosed. The core newsletter will be renamed The Observer’s Very Short List and will continue to recommend one cultural recommendation a day. VSL has 200,000 subscribers.
Very Short List was launched in 2006 by Kurt Andersen, IAC’s Michael Jackson, Tim Nolan, Emily Oberman, and Bonnie Siegler, with IAC’s backing. The founders are supposed to remain involved. The site employed about six full-time staffers, who were let go last week as the deal between IAC and Observer Media was being finalized, Gawker reported. Sara Vilkomerson, a former VeryShortList editor now at Observer Media, will be heading up the site. Release
Staci adds: This means the end of VSL‘s other newsletters—at least for now. Subscribers to VSL: Web received an e-mail today telling them that Friday’s was the last and that if they weren’t subscribers to VSL Classic, they are now. It will be sent “automatically.” VSL also produced a science newsletter and was in the process of adding newsletters for kids, food and books.
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