This year was bad by many meanings. Natural disasters, the pandemic, an unpredictable business events, spending on recovery, uncertainity... But not everything was that bad: billions were flowing thanks to mergers and acquisitions. Here is our selection of the most significant deals that marked this year.
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Coca-Cola, during the Choose France Summit announced 1 billion euros of investments in the country over the next five years. There's no doubt the company will fullfil its promise and stay strong.
PepsiCo, on the other hand, announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Hangzhou Haomusi Food or Be and Cheery, one of the largest online snacks companies in China, from Haoxiangni Health Food for $705 million. Given the strength of the Chinese market that was a very good move.
Thermo Fisher Scientific and QIAGEN announced that their boards have unanimously approved Thermo Fisher's proposal to acquire QIAGEN approximately $11.5 billion at current exchange rates, which includes the assumption of approximately $1.4 billion of net debt. A lot of money, a lot of Thermo Fisher's smart moves.
Dairy Farmers of America (DFA) has been named as the top bidder to acquire a significant portion of Dean Foods’ operations in a court-supervised sale process. Dean Foods solved a part of its bakruptcy process, and DFA god a good business.
Novo Nordisk has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Corvidia Therapeutics, which develops and commercialises therapies for cardio renal diseases, for an upfront payment of $725m. The terms of the acquisition involve total payments of approximately $2.1bn upon reaching some regulatory and sales milestones by Novo Nordisk. Good job.
Analog Devices and Maxim Integrated Products announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which ADI will acquire Maxim in an all stock transaction that values the combined enterprise at over $68 billion. Well, if that's not a good deal, we don't know what is.
Marvell and Inphi announced a definitive agreement, unanimously approved by the boards of directors of both companies, under which Marvell will acquire Inphi in a cash and stock transaction in $10bn deal. The boards were happy and the bonuses will fly, no doubt about that.
Salesforce and Slack Technologies have entered into a definitive agreement under which Salesforce will acquire Slack. A $27.7 billion deal is a nice touch to this year's acquisitions.
And we almost thought that was it but no, RealPage, a provider of software and data analytics to the real estate industry, announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Thoma Bravo in an all cash transaction that values RealPage at approximately $10.2 billion, including net debt. Bravo, Thoma Bravo.
And, of course, that's just a part, acquisitions were flying around like there's no tomorrow.
So, big were doing big business. Small business were in a big trouble but all countries stepped in to help as much as they can.
This year showed what we learn in a business school: A crisis is an opportunity. Big business found new ways to to do business even in uncertain times. There were American presidential elections, business war with China, usual accusation between the U.S. and Russia, wars around the planet, and billions of people waiting for the vaccine to stop this pandemic.
We can look at this year from two angles. From the big business side, it was extraordinary. From the human side, we can say just one thing: May 2020 never repeat again, and let's hope that we created conditions for a much much better 2021 which we await with great hope.
We wish you all great and prosperous 2021 and thank you for being with us, see you next year people! ■