Friday, July 06, 2007
Mergers & Acquisitions: A Study in Scarlet?
by Ken Houghton
Just before the Blackstone IPO (which would now be #6), Yahoo! Finance noted this an AP article listing the Top 10 IPOs (in terms of market capitalization) of all time:
The above may be large, but I count three* that are (1) arguably successful and (2) not the result of unwinding all or part of a previous Merger.
Tell me again how M&A is done for economic reasons, the way Gordon Gekko tried to explain it in Wall Street.
*Nos. 3, 4, and 7, the weakest of which—CIT Group—has a market cap about about twice its IPO.
As in red ink, that is.
Just before the Blackstone IPO (which would now be #6), Yahoo! Finance noted this an AP article listing the Top 10 IPOs (in terms of market capitalization) of all time:
1. AT&T Wireless Group, $10.6 billion. IPO Date: April 26, 2000. Underwriter: Goldman Sachs
2. Kraft Foods, $8.7 billion. IPO Date: June 12, 2001. Underwriter: Credit Suisse
3. United Parcel Service, $5.5 billion. IPO Date: Nov. 9, 1999. Underwriter: Morgan Stanley
4. CIT Group, $4.6 billion. IPO Date: July 1, 2002. Underwriter: Goldman Sachs
5. Conoco, $4.4 billion. IPO Date: Oct. 21, 1998. Underwriter: Morgan Stanley
6. Travelers Property Casualty, $3.9 billion. IPO Date: March 21, 2002. Underwriter: Citigroup
7. Goldman Sachs Group, $3.7 billion. IPO Date: May 3, 1999. Underwriter: Goldman Sachs
8. Agere Systems, $3.6 billion. IPO Date: March 27, 2001. Underwriter: Morgan Stanley
9. Charter Communications, $3.2 billion. IPO Date: Nov. 8, 1999. Underwriter: Goldman Sachs
10. Lucent Technologies, $3.0 billion. IPO Date: April 2, 1996. Underwriter: Morgan Stanley
Sources: Renaissance Capital and IPOhome.com
The above may be large, but I count three* that are (1) arguably successful and (2) not the result of unwinding all or part of a previous Merger.
Tell me again how M&A is done for economic reasons, the way Gordon Gekko tried to explain it in Wall Street.
*Nos. 3, 4, and 7, the weakest of which—CIT Group—has a market cap about about twice its IPO.
Labels: Economics, High Finance
