The Darden family, which owns roughly 24% of Quicksilver, has made an overture to take the natural gas firm private. Shares are up on the news, so is there still room to profit on the upside? Actually, it looks like the answer is yes.
Walmart has renewed its efforts to purchase Russian supermarket chain Kopeika, following reports that competing Russian grocer X5's interest in acquiring it has waned, according to Reuters.
Food giant Sara Lee saw its shares surge over 18% in premarket trading Monday after the New York Post reported the company turned down a $12 billion buyout offer from private-equity company KKR & Co.), citing unnamed sources.
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.
Brocade Communications shares surged today on investor speculation that IBM may acquire the company, which makes switches for data-storage networks.
IBM, Oracle, Hewlett Packard and Intel have been on a buying spree of late, and it's virtually guaranteed that they'll be purchasing more companies over the next several months. But which companies will they target next? Here are eight strong possibilities you might want to buy into.
Drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb plans to buy ZymoGenetics, its partner in developing a hepatitis C treatment, for $885 million. The move is part of a trend of pharmaceutical acquisitions as several big patents face expiration soon.
3G Capital will acquire Burger King for $24 per share, or $4 billion, including the assumption of the company's outstanding debt. Burger King's board has unanimously approved the deal.
Rubio's Restaurants has agreed to be acquired by private-equity firm Mill Road Capital LP for $91 million.
CKE Restaurants, operator of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's, has accepted Apollo's $694 million offer, spurning an earlier bid from THL Partners. The bidding war suggests that private equity operators are getting more aggressive with deal-making.
When Kraft offered $16 billion for Cadbury in September, the U.K. food company rejected it as insultingly low, and investors agreed. Now, with time running short and with rumors of other suitors in the hunt, the word is out that Kraft will increase its bid within days.
Now that private equity is no longer producing monster returns, it's time to assess its value. By using debt, buyout shops have taken over struggling companies and enriched investors. But critics say the practice leads to more layoffs and the "flipping" of companies.
