Semantic satiation is the technical term for what happens when a word or phrase loses its meaning from overuse. In the world of M&A, takeover targets shout “undervalued” in response to unwelcome acquisition offers so often that it’s easy for suitors and shareholders to tune it out. Beacon Roofing Supply’s $11 billion sale provides a perfect example of why it happens. CEOs and their advisers would be better served by choosing their words more carefully. QXO is effectively a shell company helmed by dealmaker Brad Jacobs that aims to roll up a building-products behemoth with $50 billion of sales, starting with Beacon.

Google’s yellow-brick road might be a path to nowhere. The search giant on Tuesday agreed to buy cybersecurity platform Wiz for $32 billion. It may help boss Sundar Pichai in his battle for the cloud, but the journey is riddled with potholes. Parent Alphabet is paying in cash to buy the startup backed by Blackstone, Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. It was a hard-fought agreement. Back in the middle of last year, the technology goliath offered $23 billion for Wiz, according to the Wall Street Journal, which would already have made it Google’s largest acquisition. Talks collapsed in part over concerns that

The TikTok ban-or-sell drama is an algorithm stuck in a loop. First U.S. President Donald Trump, then his successor Joe Biden, pushed to ban the social media app amid warnings that its ties to China pose a national security threat. Both pulled back from the brink, even if a law mandating its sale or shutdown remains on the books. Now, with Trump back in charge, a long list of mooted, familiar buyers is re-emerging. The simplest way to scroll past this glitch in the feed is to spin TikTok off. Trump has given Chinese parent ByteDance a reprieve to figure

Getty Images’ $3.7 billion merger, including debt, with rival stock image seller Shutterstock is a picture-perfect template for more deals. Three big factors – potentially looser competition policing, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the benefits of combining aging tech stragglers – argue in favor of tie-ups. Key, though, is whether investors give buyers a long enough leash to strike acquisitions. Given the warm reception to the Tuesday announcement, which touts hefty savings, the scene is set. The outgoing administration of President Joe Biden was a nightmare for dealmakers. For four years, trustbusters opposed a host of combinations on novel legal grounds, slow-rolling approvals

Cartoonist Rube Goldberg designed fantastical machines to complete simple tasks through tortuously convoluted mechanisms. Buyout shop Sycamore Partners might take his contraptions as a model, judging by a Wall Street Journal report that it’s in talks to acquire Walgreens Boots Alliance. The struggling $8 bln drugstore is buried under a $36 billion morass of debt, leases and legal costs. Yet a carefully orchestrated clean-up might extract a salvageable asset. The idea is straightforward enough. Set aside the complications and focus on Walgreens’ net debt of $6.4 billion. On that basis, before deal news broke on Tuesday, it traded at under 4 times

Buying chocolatier Hershey looks like a nutty idea. Mondelez International, the maker of Oreo cookies and Cadbury Dairy Milk bars, may nonetheless give it a shot some eight years after a previous bid failed. Crunching the numbers leaves a bitter taste. There is strategic logic to the approach, which Bloomberg reported on Monday. Rival confectioner Mars is poised to get bigger following its agreed $36 billion acquisition, including debt, of salty-snacks seller Kellanova. Moreover, anti-obesity drugs present a long-term threat to the consumption of unhealthy food, while the high price of cocoa and other supplies is pressuring the bottom line. Hershey’s gross margin

If you sup’ with the devil, you should have a long spoon. Investors in Liberty Broadband have re-learned the old adage, after it struck a roughly $13 billion sale to cable company Charter Communications on Wednesday. Both are outposts of the empire of John Malone, the “cable cowboy” famed for byzantine dealmaking. The agreement squeezes investors out of a tight spot – but charges for the privilege. Liberty is less a company than a rounding error in that empire. It owns 45.6 million shares of Charter, about a quarter of the $57 billion cable provider, where it appoints three directors. That’s a bonus

Hollywood super-agent Ari Emanuel is getting a little too fancy with his deal moves. His entertainment company Endeavor has agreed to sell some assets associated with live events to sister firm TKO. Strategically it makes some sense, but investors are throwing tomatoes for good reason. Endeavor announced on Thursday it planned to offload Professional Bull Riders, On Location, and IMG to the parent of World Wrestling Entertainment and Ultimate Fighting Championship for $3.3 billion in an all-stock transaction. The deal will boost Endeavor’s stake in TKO from 53% to 59%, further entrenching the two companies run by Emanuel. Stuffing a franchise, live

Insufficient heat can interrupt the welding process, but U.S. Steel’s problem has been too much of it. Fiery nationalistic and labor backlash is preventing the 123-year-old company from fusing with Japanese peer Nippon Steel, as leery U.S. security regulators look set to nix the $15 billion deal. Although boss David Burritt may be forced to mold his metal-maker differently, there are ways to keep it relatively strong. The fight over U.S. Steel offers a microcosm of an industry-wide one. More carbon-intensive blast furnaces produce steel of better quality. And even though, say, the smooth surfaces of car panels are tougher

Alimentation Couche-Tard’s voracious dealmaking appetite faces its biggest test. The company, which opened its first convenience store in Quebec 44 years ago, has swallowed 75 rivals at a total cost of around $18 billion since 1996, according to Dealogic data. But its latest target, Japan’s Seven & i, is a much bigger gulp. Success will depend on Couche-Tard learning from the deals that got away. Unlike many acquisition addicts, Couche-Tard’s purchases tend to pay off. According to TD Cowen analysts, synergies from six of its biggest past deals were higher than initially expected. That helped the $52 billion company’s shares

Walt Disney is under attack for being a monopoly. If only it had that much pricing power. Two recent arrangements showcase the $160 billion media giant trying to exercise control of its content. The trouble for Disney is that competition is steep, and customers have plenty of other places to go. On Sunday, DirecTV users could not access any of the Magic Kingdom’s channels, including broadcast station ABC and sports network ESPN. The pay-TV provider and Disney are locked in a licensing dispute that has impacted some 11 million subscribers just before the National Football League kicks off its opening matchup

Fewer blank checks are being written on Wall Street, but bankers are still happily cashing them. Even amid sluggish deal markets, money managers keep tinkering with special-purpose acquisition companies, ensuring a steady drip of activity. Buyout shops have good reasons, however, to help them really revive the sullied model. Taking shell companies public on the promise of finding takeover targets peaked in 2021, when nearly 700 of them raised more than $165 billion, according to LSEG data. The frenzied hype broke in large part after higher interest rates curbed risk appetites for speculative ventures and U.S. securities regulators blocked wild-eyed projections associated with SPAC