Calculating the Value of a Failed Merger
That sound you hear is the whoosh of nearly $42 billion disappearing from mergers league tables.
When it was announced Feb. 1, Microsoft’s blockbuster offer for Yahoo landed like an asteroid on the deal landscape, terrain made barren by the credit market’s drought and the quakes of the slumping economy. Depending on one’s definition of “tech deals,” the unsolicited offer was the largest-ever.
No more (at least for now). Richard Peterson, an analyst with Thomson Financial, calculated the damage Microsoft’s withdrawal will do to the league tables tracking mergers and acquisitions.




