Weekly Highlights: Deals
admin Salesforce is bringing in three new independent directors to its board, including Mason Morfit, the CEO of ValueAct. This move is being seen as a response to the three activists currently targetting the company: Elliott, Starboard, and Jeff Ubben, the former head of ValueAct who now runs Inclusive Capital.
Qiagen, a company that has been followed by M&A watchers for a long time, is considering the sale of a minority stake in its bioinformatics division.
Perella Weinberg’s London headquarters were searched as part of a German insider trading investigation. Frankfurt prosecutors are looking into allegations that a London-based employee at the bank disclosed information on planned takeovers and other suspects traded on that.
Goldman Sachs is thinking of providing financing to Serie A, a boost to the Italian football league that has struggled to secure backers in recent years.
United Internet and Warburg Pincus set an IPO price range for Ionos Group, a web hosting business that will list in Frankfurt.
Fintech giant Ant Group’s valuation was trimmed again by Fidelity Investments, more than two years after the Chinese government halted its record initial public offering. Boston-based Fidelity cut its estimate for Ant by about 9% to about $63.8 billion as of the end of November from the end of May.
SAP is planning to cut about 3,000 jobs this year while exploring a sale of its remaining stake in Qualtrics International as the company looks for ways to boost profit.
US investment firm MSP Sports Capital is considering an investment in Everton FC. It’s yet another indication of American investors’ rapacious appetite for top teams playing in the world’s richest football league.
The US Federal Trade Commission filed its lawsuit to block Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of gaming company Activision Blizzard in December partly to get ahead of its European counterparts and dissuade them from accepting a settlement allowing the deal.
Nathan Anderson, the activist short seller behind Hindenburg Research, is going after his biggest game yet. The timing of Hindenburg’s report on the Adani Group, just before the $2.5 billion share sale by the conglomerate’s flagship firm, has startled market watchers.
Hanover-based travel giant TUI has picked banks to arrange a rights offering to help repay part of a German government pandemic bailout package.
Morgan Stanley fined some of its own bankers more than $1 million each for conducting business on WhatsApp and other messaging platforms.
Rupert Murdoch said he was abandoning plans to explore a merger of Fox Corp. and News Corp. after investors pushed back on the deal. Meanwhile, News Corp. is in talks to sell its Move online real estate business to CoStar for $3 billion.
The information provided in this deals summary article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as investment advice. The deals and investments discussed in this article are subject to change and may not be representative of the overall market. The deals data is based on publicly available information and should not be taken as a guarantee of future performance. The information provided in this article is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice and readers should always conduct their own research and due diligence before making any investment decisions.
Ria V Vaghela is an M&A Executive at RSM UK and an MSc Finance graduate from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). She has worked at Jefferies, Dial Partners and 7i Capital prior to RSM UK gaining an experience of about 1.5 years. She has also worked as an Editor and Content Writer for The Representative Media. Apart from finance, she is interested in reading books on psychology and economics and also likes to paint and play lawn tennis
