mergers

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.

What happens when you merge the worst in class with the best in class? AT&T's proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA may be good news for investors, but it will likely mean a drop in service for customers, experts say.

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.

Retailers are getting back to business after the recession and showing stronger earnings, making them attractive targets for private equity investors -- and each other.

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

Social networking pioneer MySpace could find itself going solo again soon. Its owner, News Corp, is considering a potential sale or spin-off of the social network as it looks for a way to stem the tens of millions of dollars in losses it's taking from the unit, according to a Bloomberg report.

Companies such as Duke Energy and DuPont are off and running with megamergers early this year. Even Playboy is among the dealers. And market pros say the trend is far from over. Why are so many U.S. companies tying the knot? Fast growth is hard to come by in any other strategy.

Even after a round of acquisitions in 2010, some big tech companies are still rolling in cash -- and 2011 looks like another promising year for tech mergers. Here's columnist Peter Cohan's list of top tech acquisition targets for 2011.

Nokia Siemens's planned acquisition of the bulk of Motorola's wireless-network business likely won't happen this year. Chinese regulators are still reviewing the deal, and Nokia Siemens now expects approval -- and the completion of the purchase -- will have to wait until the first quarter of 2011.

Canada's second largest bank and private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management plan to buy automotive financial products and services company Chrysler Financial for approximately $6.3 billion in cash.