There is an ongoing and very heated debate between the unconditional supporters of private equity and their opponents. It’s not hard to see why. On the surface, these investors can often buy fragile companies…
For the global mergers and acquisitions market, 2014 has been a year of strong recovery. According to Mergermarket, global M&A value in the first three quarters reached over US$2.5 trillion – a record…
The merger between Burger King and Canadian coffee-and-doughnuts chain Tim Hortons has sparked a great deal of reaction and much of it has been nationalistic in flavour. There was speculation that Burger…
The US$11 billion merger of Burger King and Canadian coffee and doughnuts chain Tim Hortons is the latest example of a tax inversion move. The deal will see BK transfer its company headquarters from the…
People can raze mountains, divert rivers, clear forests and give subsidies, grants and preferential loans as a welcome to corporations, but the companies themselves don’t have any loyalty to communities…
The furore over US pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer’s attempted takeover of UK rival AstraZeneca continues. AstraZeneca has now rejected Pfizer’s “final” offer, as it says the proposed deal “undervalues the…
Here’s the thing about big corporate mergers: in the long run, they’re rarely successful. And yet they keep happening. In fact, the corporate world is witnessing a wave of merger and acquisition mania…
Pfizer is like Woody Allen’s famous shark. It has to keep moving or it will die. And the drug company seems unable to keep moving by any means other than acquisitions. Its all-time best-selling drug, Lipitor…
The world’s biggest cement producers Lafarge and Holcim have announced plans to merge. In an industry with strong economies of scale that already pumps out more cement than the world needs, consolidation…
Australia’s four pillars policy is widely misunderstood. At heart, it is an anti-bank policy, one which prohibits the large banks from doing what they might like to do and that is to merge. It stops them…
Microsoft’s takeover of Nokia’s mobile phone division won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who has kept an eye on the pair for any length of time. Two years ago, the two companies decided to collaborate…
Among Western nations it would be difficult to find two cultures as different as the US and Finland. Americans are stereotypically confident and outgoing; Finns considerably more reserved. This is even…
As the initial shock of the Qantas lockout of its workforce abates, it is time to consider the wider implications of this action. One lesson is the folly of national identification of companies that are…
Foster’s Group’s acceptance of a $12.3 billion takeover bid from global brewer SABMiller will see the ownership of some of Australia’s most popular beer brands, such as Victoria Bitter and Cascade, fall…
Five senior executives of the Chinese-owned investor Hanlong Mining have had assets frozen after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) launched an investigation into alleged insider…
If I were a shareholder in Foster’s, which is facing a hostile takeover bid from global brewer SABMiller, there are three questions that I would ask myself before deciding whether to sell my stake. First…
Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Associate Dean (Teaching), Director of the Glendonbrook Institute for Enterprise Development, Loughborough University