Word: merger
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...Technologies Corp.--whose Pratt & Whitney division is another huge enginemaker--planned to buy Honeywell. Within 45 minutes, on the phone from his car, Welch had lined up his board to make a counter-offer. Two days later he had Honeywell in the bag; it would be the largest ever merger between two industrial companies. Welch delayed his retirement to oversee the integration of GE and Honeywell--and to set the capstone on his legendary career...
...fact that regulators aren't likely to stand in the way of a merger between No. 1 cable guy AT&T and No. 3 Comcast - FCC rules limiting the size of cable companies are falling fast in the Bush regime - may bring other suitors to Armstrong's door, helping him drive the price up. But the best thing about a Washington-blessed Comcast-AT&T Broadband marriage is the company it creates: the largest cable and Internet-access company in the world, managed by Comcast's proven money-makers and boasting not only tens of millions of subscribers but dominant...
...What all that means for the U.S., from Washington to Wall Street, is that in globalized antitrust regulation the higher bar is the only bar. A merger of Connecticut-based GE and New Jersey-based Honeywell qualified for Euro-scrutiny because the combined revenues of the two companies exceed the EU's circuit-breakers of $4.3 billion in global sales and $215 million in EU sales...
...Honeywell qualified by a country mile, and so will a lot of other U.S. mergers. E.U. and U.S. antitrust officials work closely together, and for most of the '90s, if American companies could get a deal past their own government, they could get it past the EU. (The last big merger spiked by the EU, WorldCom-Sprint, was denied by the U.S. a day later.) Now, Bush's hands may be off the gates, but Monti's are still on. Which suddenly makes Europe a very imposing gatekeeper...
...seen as protectionist by outside companies; it could be good for business everywhere if the European theory of consolidation, competition and the greater good turns out to be the smart call. But now that the EU has made clear its intention to set its own pace for global mergers, the immediate fallout will be that the next time Wall Street sees a potentially tricky merger coming along, it's rather likely to sneer and something nasty about the French...