Danone's medical nutrition unit operates the Nutricia brand, which sells baby formula for infants with certain allergies and conditions

Hospira, Danone in talks for $5-billion inversion deal

AbbVie, became the latest American multinational to attempt a so-called inversion, offering $46 bn for Shire

With efforts to buy Shire, AbbVie tries to join rush to go abroad

Business Standard

If completed, Medtronic would be the latest big American company to reincorporate abroad through a so-called inversion

Medical device maker Medtronic eyes $45-bn deal

Sprint and T-Mobile have talked about a combination for years but continued to put it off

T-Mobile, Sprint zeroing in on a $32-billion merger

11 Main is Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba's first website to specifically aim at American shoppers

Spreading the net: Alibaba's American aspirations

Mike White, DirecTV's chief executive, is not expected to step down if the deal goes throughAT&T is in talks to buy DirecTV for at least $50 billion, and the two sides are actively working toward an announcement, according to several people with knowledge of the matter.If completed, a deal would give AT&T, the country's second-largest wireless carrier, control of the country's largest satellite television provider, further reshaping the rapidly changing telecommunications and television industries. AT&T has grown interested in DirecTV in recent months, according to several people with knowledge of the company's thinking, leading to an approach in the last few weeks. Rumours of a deal between the two companies have sent DirecTV shares up about 12 percent this month.On Monday, after The Wall Street Journal reported that talks had accelerated, details on the timing and the price of a deal began coming into focus. The terms of any agreement are not expected to be released in th

AT&T eyes DirecTV with $50-bn offer

Claritin and Coppertone sunscreen are two of the products sold by Merck's consumer unitMerck, the big health care company, is close to a deal to sell its consumer unit to Bayer for about $14 billion, a person briefed on the matter said on Thursday.A deal is expected to be announced in the coming days, before Merck holds an investor briefing in Boston on Tuesday.Bayer is expected to pay cash and also swap some assets to complete the deal, which was a competitive process until recently. Reckitt Benckiser, the British health care giant, only recently backed out of the bidding. Sanofi, Procter & Gamble and Novartis were also previously interested in Merck's consumer unit.Divesting itself of the unit, which includes popular products like the allergy medicine Claritin, Dr. Scholl's shoe inserts and Coppertone sunscreen, will allow Merck to focus on its specialty pharmaceuticals division. Merck is refocusing as it grapples with patent expirations that pushed quarterly revenue down 4 per c

Merck said to be near closing deal with Bayer

Vista Equity Partners, whose performance rivals that of the big names in the field, invests exclusively in enterprise software while seeking to transform the companies it holds

Narrow focus, broad aims

$19-bn deal  for text messaging firm includes $12 bn in stock and $4 bn in cashThe frenzy to acquire fast-growing technology start-ups reached new heights on Thursday as Facebook announced its largest acquisition ever, saying it would pay at least $16 billion for WhatsApp, a text messaging application with 450 million users around the world who pay little or no money for it.The hefty price signals the lengths to which Facebook's co-founder & chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, will go to protect his company's turf as the dominant social network on the web, and is sure to fuel the debate on whether consumer internet companies are overvalued.Facebook, based in Menlo Park, California, will pay $4 billion in cash and $12 billion worth of shares for WhatsApp. But the ultimate cost of the deal could rise to $19 billion, with WhatsApp employees and founders receiving an additional $3 billion in restricted stock units, which would vest over the next four years.By any measure, Facebook is pay

Facebook likes WhatsApp

Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator, wants to get even larger. Already the dominant player in providing pay television services to American consumers, Comcast announced on Thursday a deal for Time Warner Cable's boards, which will create a behemoth that will dominate the media industry.It is the second transformative deal for Comcast in recent years, coming just months after it completed an acquisition of NBC Universal, the TV and movie studio. And the deal, if completed, could have impacts on consumers across the country, though it is unlikely to reduce competition in many markets.Describing the deal as "a friendly, stock-for-stock transaction," Comcast will acquire 100 per cent of Time Warner Cable's 284.9 million shares outstanding, in a deal worth about $45.2 billion in stock value.The deal will leave Time Warner Cable shareholders owning approximately 23 per cent of Comcast's common stock."The financial benefits of this are attractive and will create sustainable benefits

Comcast to acquire Time Warner Cable for $45.2 bn

Time Warner Cable made it clear that it was not interested in doing a deal at that price

Big offer for Time Warner Cable unsettles the cable industry

Over the past two decades, Ari Emanuel has climbed - brashly, ruthlessly - into Hollywood's power centre with one position in mind: king.With a nighttime raid on his own office files at International Creative Management in 1995,  Emanuel and three colleagues started a talent agency called Endeavor. He engineered a striking takeover in 2009 of the old-line William Morris Agency. And on Tuesday, in a dramatic third act, his current company, William Morris Endeavor, won a bidding war for the huge sports and media talent agency IMG.Mission accomplished - assuming he and his co-chief executive, Patrick Whitesell, can hold it all together.William Morris Endeavor, working with its private equity partner, Silver Lake Partners, beat out two other groups with an offer of about $2.3 billion for IMG, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the companies intend to announce the acquisition on Wednesday.A combined IMG and William Morris

David Gelles