In Play

  

Categories: Banking, Trading

For a long time, you've had a crush on your best friend's spouse. You lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking of them...sighing forlornly and imaging what it would be like to be with them. You thought you'd never have a chance. They were off the market.

Then word comes: your best friend and their spouse are getting a divorce. Soon, they'll be dating again. Finally, your chance has come (assuming you don't care too much about your best friend's feelings). Your crush is back on the market. They are...in play.

The same dynamics work for the corporate merger market. A company is said to be "in play" when it becomes a clear candidate for a takeover.

This situation can arise in a number of ways. A company can announce a merger deal, which prompts competing offers to appear. Or a company can announce that it wants to put itself up for sale, and then conduct a formal process of receiving bids. Or another company can launch a hostile bid, which again flushes other suiters out.

Whatever way it happens, the key point is that the company now has multiple bids to juggle. It's in play.

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Finance: What's the difference between m...22 Views

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Finance allah shmoop what's the difference between mergers and acquisitions

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all right people listen up Merger that's what's about to

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happen here it's a merger acquisition that's what's about to

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happen here Corporate america is kind of same thing when

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two companies merge while they generally you know attracted to

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each other hopefully respect each other they share stock or

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combined the stocks of each side and you know combine

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efforts and then and then cuddle afterwards if they're successful

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at the merger than the combination of two roughly equals

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yields more than the one plus one combo that made

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them so two companies get together on generally equal ish

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footing In that case acquisitions are a combining more like

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that eating thing on much different footing The large company

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eats or buys the target either using its more highly

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valued stock currency or it's taft to do so Well

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why would a company acquire another Well the target might

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have one hundred employees ninety of whom can be fired

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with massive expense savings after the acquisition For the acquirer

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such that economically the acquisition won't just makes a whole

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lot of financial sense acquisitions happen for market power reasons

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As well like imagine the negotiating leverage that amazon would

01:23

have if it bought the next five biggest online retailers

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Or maybe it'll just kill them Probably not legal for

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them to buy him anyway given the monopoly like dominance

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of amazon these days But wow that would be a

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powerful set of acquisitions And that would be a good

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reason for ems on to acquire a whole bunch Things

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and bezos would grow even more powerful maybe too powerful

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Finance: What are accretive v dilutive v neutral acquisitions?
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