m&a Archives

UK companies to be protected from protracted bids

The UK’s M&A regulator, The Takeover Panel has concluded that the regime for hostile bids needs revision. Calls for a radical overhaul of the British approach to takeovers were made following the heated Kraft/Cadbury deal earlier this year.

The Panel

Minority shareholder rights in the spotlight

Are some European issuers trying to avoid playing fair with their minority shareholders? With the news that USS and Hermes have now tendered their Océ shares after the Enterprise Chamber of the Amsterdam Court of Appeals rejected the pension funds’ …

Executive Payouts – An Increasingly Large Frictional Cost in Mergers

Mergers frequently result in large one-time payouts to executives of the acquired company, through change-in-control payments and acceleration of equity awards. Several recent mergers, however, have highlighted how significant those deferred costs can be for shareholders.

Executives at oilfield-services company …

Mega-mergers: is it too late to stop the madness?

The high-profile takeovers of ABN AMRO (by a consortium of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis and Banco Santander) and of Alcon by Rio Tinto have seen the acquirers scrambling to raise funding in recent months. Former RBS Chairman, Sir Tom …