Word: merger
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...spin off noncore operations if its $58 billion plan, among the largest hostile takeovers in history, is accepted. It's easy to forget that the most famous takeover battle of all time, R.J. Reynolds' 1988 bloody leveraged buyout of Nabisco, was valued at a paltry $25 billion. (The biggest merger of all time, to put things in perspective, is still in the process of creation: the announced marriage between Mobil and Exxon, which is estimated to be worth at least $80 billion...
...surprising that many of the new deals have an American feel: Europe's latest merger boom is being shaped by armies of pinstriped investment bankers jetting in from Wall Street. In fact, two banks based in New York City, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, overtook their European rivals for the first time in 1998 and became the top two advisers for takeovers in Europe in terms of the value of deals they helped bring about, according to Securities Data/Thomson Financial. "I believe there's going to be a lot more hostile activity," predicts Wilder Fulford, a managing director for mergers...
...driving forces of the merger wave are globalization and Europe's new single currency. Globalization has forced companies to compare their performance with other firms, in their business worldwide. Drug companies, for example, have to compare development and production costs whether they are based in Sweden, France or the U.S. The result: executives slash costs, by combining overlapping operations...
Italy is hardly the only place where this is happening. The consolidation wave in banking began on Jan. 15 when Spain's Banco de Santander announced an $11.3 billion merger with crosstown rival Banco Central Hispano. This was followed by the $18 billion bid by Societe Generale, one of France's largest retail banks, with Paribas, the country's leading investment bank. During a sleepy Italian weekend in March, Unicredito, based in Milan, launched a $16 billion bid to buy northern rival Banca Commerciale Italiana, perhaps Italy's most prestigious banking brand. Only a few hours later, San Paulo...
Size is so important that the prospect of creating a "champion of the European banking sector" prompted Banque Nationale de Paris to attempt to outmaneuver its rivals with a dramatic $37.6 billion offer to buy both Societe Generale and Paribas once their intended merger was announced, further jolting the French markets. If the BNP takeover ever goes through, it will create a bank with nearly $1 trillion in assets--Europe's largest--and give it an edge over the top U.S. bank, Citigroup, which currently has assets of $668.6 billion...