Long time listener, first time caller. Searched through the forums to no avail. What do you consider the greatest acquisition of all time? Can be corporate, government, whatever. A few that come to mind.
What others come to mind?
Cheers,
Will
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Vodafone - Mannesman in 1999. Valued at $180bn (about $270bn adjusted for inflation now). Just a huge deal. I think it was also quite important in the telecoms industry with the industry entering a phase of rapid consolidation.
The Exxon/Mobil merger was a massive deal that had huge influences on industrials at the time.
The Patriots acquisition of Randy Moss for a 4th round pick.
Pretty sure you mean our lord and savior Josh Gordon
“When I say I went to Rand University it’s just for all those people with no dog gone degreees, I could have been right there with them” - Randy Moss, Rand U 30 for 30
23 receiving touchdowns in a season (2007) record isn't going anywhere for a while. Those were fun games to watch - losing to the Giants still haunts my dreams.
For real though. Moss came to the Patriots in 2007 and finished the season with 23 touchdowns! To put that in perspective, he had 98 catches that season, meaning every fourth catch was a touchdown. Go and look up Brady's stats - goes from 24 touchdowns in 2006 to 50 in 2007. Moss was a monster.
TPG's acquisition of MEMC has to go on the list. Paid $6.00 (not $6 million, $6.00) and $200 million of assumed debt, ten years later completed their exit with somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 billion.
Now that's a turnaround!
Think we might have a winner
Did they end up paying more later when they went from 70% to 90%?
Anybody who bought Bitcoin and other Alts coin in the past few years and sold out before the Crypto crash ....looking at 1000x returns in some cases
Forrest Gump buying AAPL at the IPO
Some sort of fruit company
Nike signing Michael Jordan
I like to think of "Best" as the absolute worst and most horrible. In this regard, it has to be Microsoft's purchase of Nokia for almost $8bn in 2014.
Hot off the heels of watching the Microsoft phone fail while Apple and Android phones succeed, Steve Ballmer, current owner of the LA Clippers and then CEO of Microsoft, had the bright idea to purchase Nokia, who was going through their own mobile phone slump. Together they produced the Lumia line of phones, which never gained any traction.
End result, Ballmer "resigned" from Microsoft and 15,000 Nokia employees were let go in efforts to "streamline" the Company.
Google - YouTube wins for the current economy in terms of a bargain for the acquirer.
Disney & Fox. Can’t wait for what would be next in MCU.
I'd say Disney and Google are the best corporate deal-makers. In addition to buying the Star Wars franchise through the acquisition of Lucasfilm in 2012 for $4.05 Billion, Disney also bought Marvel in 2009 for $4 Billion and Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 Billion. I ask you, what would Disney be without those acquisitions? It would have theme parks and Mickey Mouse merchandise, but those acquisitions were business-defining events for the company. This is why Bob Iger gets the benefit of the doubt from most equity analysts when they consider the Fox deal.
For the record, I don't like the Fox deal. It is enormous--10 times the size of the Pixar deal. Sure, it largely completes the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Fox had rights to X-men and Fantastic Four), but deals of this size rarely work well. They're also quite rare, so there isn't a large enough sample to make a meaningful statistical inference. Still, it's a risky move for Disney. They essentially want to own the space of content creation and from there start to own the distribution of their content through their own streaming service ("Disney+"--top work marketing team). The strategy makes sense, but I think you can buy a lot of other content for $70 Billion.
As for Google, while the YouTube acquisition was a huge win, I think the acquisition of Android was an even better buy. Google allegedly bought Android for $50 million in 2005. That was Google's foray into the mobile market. If they hadn't made that acquisition, Google wouldn't be the company it is today. In terms of outright return on investment, the TPG acquisition of MEMC is obviously better, but turnaround situations always have the most potential upside (if you acquire something for a penny and sell it for a positive number, the IRR will be huge). Corporate deal-making is harder than PE deal-making, though, and I like that Android acquisition muy mucho.
BlackRock - Acquired Barclay's Global Investors (iShares) in 2009 for $13.5B
how do you figure? if you assume an average expense ratio of 5bps on $1trillion, they paid 27x revenue (and that's current revenue, not 2009 revenue).
I see where it makes sense from a market share standpoint, but I personally think they overpaid if my numbers are right
Apollo buying Lyondell debt and doubling down during the crisis. $2Bn invested for ~$12Bn 6 years later
Purchase of Manhattan Island for 60 guilders ($23) in 1626.
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