This week in merger news
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This week saw three merger deals worth about $60 billion--including one that ranks as the largest software merger in history.
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Technology problems arise as Sprint and Nextel merge. Also: Symantec buys Veritas.... Illinois' governor bans violent video games for minors & hellip;.  and more.
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Business & money: Â· Wild Oats' online critic unmasked as rival's chiefÂ· Consumer agency lawsuit threatens $565m merger
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Falling milk prices, evaporating European Union subsidies and tougher demands by supermarket chains yesterday nudged two of Europe&#39;s leading dairy companies into the biggest merger in the continent&#39;s dairy industry.
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Don't mind the mergers. Watch the valuation.
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A committee that deals with antitrust issues plans to look into the proposed $3.1 billion merger next week. The search giant and its rivals, Microsoft and Yahoo, are expected to testify.
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Over five months after the two companies announced their intention to merge, search engine leader Google and display advertising leader DoubleClick petitioned the European Commission on Friday for clearance of their merger terms. This morning, according to the Associated Press, the EC responded by warning that a full investigation of their petition could consume as much as four months.
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A few things you may not have caught in last week's news.
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FEW things stir the heart of stock investors like a huge merger deal. And last week&#39;s shotgun wedding between Kmart and Sears, two limping retailers, was no exception.
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Intuit's move to acquire financial services vendor Digital InsightÂ this week, Â and 3Com Corp.'s deal to buy out Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd's stake in their joint venture are signs that mergers and acquisitions activity continues unabated. The question is what this means for technology generally.
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The case of Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific shows why mergers work.
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On the surface, the frenzy of telecommunications mergers in the past few weeks raises relatively clear-cut questions for lawmakers and regulators who will be weighing the deals: Will consumers and businesses be harmed if long-distance choices disappear when AT&T and MCI are swallowed by telephone giants SBC and Verizon?
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Updated from 12:51 pm ESTWithin hours of the announcement that antivirus maker Symantec (SYMC:Nasdaq) and software storage vendor Veritas (VRTS:Nasdaq) would merge, skeptical investors shaved about a billion dollars off the value of the all-stock deal.
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Wall Street&#39;s merger-fueled rally may  continue next week, so long as Friday&#39;s payrolls report and  other economic news don&#39;t spoil the party.
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Time Warner pays to settle securities fraud charges. Also: The FCC says yes to wireless internet for airline passengers & hellip;.  Google wins trademark lawsuit against Geico & hellip;. and more.
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With merger and acquisition fever said to be waning, which deals will be the ones to work out?
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(InfoWorld) - While consolidation can be a sign of a mature, slowing market, the M&A activity happening now, especially seen in context of this week's six-year Nasdaq Composite Index high, signals confidence in IT and prospects for growth. High-tech mergers and acquisitions hit a record number last year and the trend continues. Wednesday, Cisco Systems announcedÂ it will make a $135 million acquisition of Reactivity, a maker of XML gateway and security hardware to manage Web services. Tuesday,Â SAP said it would acquire Pilot Software, a supplier of strategy management software, while Wind River SystemsÂ saidÂ it bought FSMLabs' embedded Linux technology for real-time applications. SAP rival Software AG said Wednesday thatÂ it will be focusing on SOA products and services and plans acquisitions to broaden its product portfolio. Companies outside of traditional enterprise IT are also part of the M&A trend. Satellite radio operators Sirius Satellite RadioÂ and XM Satellite Radio Holdings, with total revenue of about $1.5 billion, announced Monday thatÂ they plan to merge. Though different sectors within IT are subject to unique market situations, globalization and trends in financing are the prime forces driving M&A, according to Eric Gebaide, managing director of Innovation Advisors, a New York investment firm. After the "general meltdown" in 2001, it's been hard for small companies, especially those under $75 million in revenue, to go public, Gebaide said. This makes them acquisition targets. "Another factor is the need to start having global solutions," Gebaide said. The globalization of technology is underscored by an Innovation Advisers study, based on using data sourced from Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, that shows that the total percentage of U.S.-based companies participating in M&A activity continued to decline to 51.6 percent from 57.9 percent in 2005. Overall M&A transactions hit a record last year: The total number of transactions in 2006 was 4,669, exceeding 2005's total of 3,455, and the 2000 total of 2,871 deals at the peak of the dot-com boom, according to Innovations Advisers. But the total amount of dollars spent on M&A last year was less than in 2000: $295.8 billion, while the 2000 transaction total was $490.3 billion. Company valuations are more reasonable now than in 2000. Recent deals show software companies are being valued at two to four times revenue, while service companies are valued at one to two times revenue, Gebaide said. Historically, these numbers are more normal then the valuations of the dot-com boom. Meanwhile, services companies are forecasting solid revenue growth this year -- a sign that users are investing in IT, Gebaide points out. The Nasdaq close on Wednesday, at 2518.42, was the highest in six years. On Thursday it closed up again, at 2524.94. Coming right after earnings season, this is another sign that confidence is high. Although overall global revenue growth in IT is expected to be modest compared to the dot-com boom --- most estimates peg IT growth this year at about 6.5 percent -- the expansion is likely to be more sustainable than it was seven years ago. Though the IT market may not be as exuberant as it was in 2000, many investors are certainly willing to settle for more stable, rational growth. Â