MA

Diamond Foods is buying the Pringles brand of chips from Procter & Gamble for $1.5 billion. The deal is the latest -- and biggest -- of a stack of acquisitions for the maker of Emerald nuts and Pop Secret popcorn, making Diamond to the No. 2 snack company after PepsiCo's Frito-Lay.

Mergers and acquisitions are becoming ever more popular, with activity up 24% in the first two months of this year -- after already growing 23% in 2010. Here's how your portfolio can benefit from this trend.

What is preventing the French pharmaceutical group and U.S. biotech from reaching a merger agreement?

When Barnes & Noble announced it was looking for a buyer, we entertained the fanciful notion that struggling rival Borders might put in a bid. As absurd as the idea was, that buyout offer has been made. Here's why it has virtually no chance of succeeding.

Private equity firms are likely to buy retailer J. Crew Group for $43.50 a share or about $2.8 billion, though investors might balk at such a modest premium.

Global mergers and acquisitions activity is expected to rocket upward 36% next year, getting its strength from the financial and real estate industries, according to a report released Monday -- a level of increase that hasn't been seen since the credit crisis hit.

Goldman Sachs is expected to report a sharp drop in third-quarter earnings early Tuesday, due to a decline in trading activity in a market that's been light on volume for months. Goldman is forecast to report adjusted earnings of $2.28 a share.

Giant drugmaker Johnson & Johnson has agreed to buy Dutch vaccine maker Crucell. The deal will give J&J a bigger piece of the vaccine market and better access to emerging markets.

Southwest Airlines, one of the earliest discount airlines, will buy rival AirTran -- another sign of consolidation in an industry that has witnessed the mergers of Northwest with Delta and United with Continental over the last two years.

The FTC has cleared a BHP Billiton bid for Potash Corp., but that hardly matters. Authorities in the fertilizer company's home country of Canada may not approve the transaction. And it looks like BHP won't be the only bidder. The giant Chinese conglomerate Sinochem is working on an offer.