Deals of the Day: The Love Triangles of Dealmaking
Deals of the Day includes all the major news of the morning related to mergers and acquisitions and financing. For breaking deal news, turn to the WSJ’s Deals & Deal Makers page, or click here to automatically sign up for Deals Alert emails.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Yahoo: The Web media firm’s directors meet Friday to discuss alternatives to a Microsoft takeover, with many insiders still seeing a Microsoft deal. [WSJ]
Related: The New York Post does a quick update on the first 100 days of Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes. [New York Post]
National City: In another three-way bidding situation, Bank of Novia Scotia has expressed interest in National City.
No company is good enough for Chris Flowers: J. Christopher Flowers, who broke the buyout of Sallie Mae and pulled out of the bidding for Northern Rock, is likely to walk away from a bid for U.K. life insurer Friends Provident. [Reuters]
Sweet success: Cadbury Schweppes is betting its drinks unit will be worth more as an independent company. Shareholders could be disappointed. [WSJ]
TriZetto: Apax Partners will pay $22 a share, or $1.4 billion, for the healthcare software maker. [Statement from TriZetto]
Entergy: New York’s attorney general urged the rejection of Entergy’s proposed spinoff of nuclear stations into a stand-alone nuclear-power company. [WSJ]
Today in irresponsible options speculation: Rampant market rumors emerge about alleged buyouts of Boyd Gaming and uranium company Cameco, as well as six other companies. The companies’ options should either be bought or sold, depending on whom you believe. [WSJ]
Capital Markets
Auction-rate securities: The market for them has shrunk by $51 billion. [Bloomberg]
The U.S. economy: The weakening U.S. economy has further to fall. [WSJ]
Morgan Stanley: The bank has won the mandate to advise on a second Saudi rights offering. [Financial News at efinancialnews.com; subscription required]
Hardier markets: Bernanke said policymakers should move ahead in trying to strengthen the markets. [WSJ]
Gloomy times: It looks like a recession, and acts like a recession, but we may not be able to call it a recession, argues MarketWatch.com forecaster of the month David Resler, the chief economist at Nomura Securities. [MarketWatch.com]
Related: George Soros thinks the credit crisis will get worse. Yesterday, you’ll remember, Morgan Stanley’s John Mack said it would end soon. Reasonable minds can disagree, we guess. [Associated Press via WSJ]
Related: GE profits tumble. If GE isn’t doing that great, what hope is there for anybody? The company’s performance may indicate we’re in a recession. [Reuters]
Buyside
Bill Gross: The vaunted Pimco fund manager has reported his highest exposure to mortgage securities since 2000, indicating he believes we’re at the bottom of the crunch for high-grade securities, Renee Schultes of Financial News reports. [Financial News, efinancialnews.com; subscription required]
Funds overboard!: Lehman Brothers bails out five of its debt funds for a total of $1.5 billion. [Bloomberg via New York Post]
Schwab: The mortgage mess laid waste to one of Charles Schwab’s bond mutual funds, which was supposed to be as safe as cash. [WSJ]
Bankruptcy & Restructuring
Linens ‘n Things: The home-furnishings retailer caught by an increasing debt load and shrinking housing market, is expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection by Tuesday. The buyout firm behind them, you may remember, is Apollo Management.[WSJ]
Frontier Airlines: It became the fourth U.S. airline to file for bankruptcy protection in a month. [Bloomberg]
Financial Institutions
Bear Stearns: It issued a profit warning for the first quarter. Shocking. [Financial News US]
Opening the Fed’s Spigot: Lehman Brothers repackaged some of its unsold buyout loans into a new security that it used as collateral to obtain cash loans from the Fed. Other Wall Street investment banks, known for their ingenuity, are expected to follow suit. [WSJ]
Investment banks: Investment banks really like this new Fed lending program. Really. [WSJ]
People & Players
UBS: John Sinik, the co-head of leveraged finance for UBS, quit to join hedge fund Towerbrook Capital. [Bloomberg]
Credit Suisse: Michael Ryan, the head of securities for Credit Suisse who joined from Goldman last year, has left the bank. Four other people will take over his responsibilities, writes Fareed Sahloul of Financial News. [Financial News at efinancialnews.com; subscription required]
Weekend Bonus, Industrial Sabotage edition: A diabolical Red Sox fan on the construction team for the new Yankee Stadium buried a t-shirt from the Boston team in the concrete floors of the new Yankee Stadium. It may be cursed forever now, frets the New York Post. [New York Post]
–With Heidi N. Moore
What a Deal here… you missed one in the “BUY-Side”?
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Memo to: GE Value Added Share Holders
Jeff I-Melt Your Stock Value,
I apologize for calling you dumb A$$, you are much smarter than I imagined… you think! You are actually just plain… stupid! Even a clown like your overpaid stooge… Jim Cramming Cramer and CNBC wanta’ bees… know when to come in out of the raining deluge debt clouds of Global Finance… you think! And now you can’t even give it away after taking losses on top of more losses. What are we looking at here folks another 6 years of $32-$35 dollars a share? What was that you said in March about the Credit Crisis in the Global Finance Structure… I just can’t seem to get my arms around it, we just have to wait and see… well I hope like heck your eyes are awake by now… you think… it’s too late… “Elephants Do Not Fly”, but you your case they do fly out you A$$…. 5.8% Fall in Net Income?
You are probably the first CEO of GE to actually ruin its reputation on Wall Street – The Street and the Global Market Place let alone your own employees… don’t even pack your bags… your fired! We will send them to your new address later… just leave! Your legacies precedes you = Growth/Profit = “NEG. ZERO”! You have just created the world’s greatest buying opportunity in the History of GE Stocks! Call-ins now running for the emergency exit… with out parachutes… at $28.50!
What a Friging’n…GE-nius… you think?
The OZ
Not only is GEE GE affecting Wall Street today in pre-open but check out the US Tax Payers currency “Mark to Market”… you think!
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Last trade 71.768 Change -0.380 (-0.53%)
Settle Time 15:08 Open 72.124
Previous Close 72.148 High 72.169
Low 71.696 2008-04-11 08:11:51, 30 min delay
The OZ
Five-year credit default swaps on GECC rose by 8 basis points, or about 6.5 percent, to 131 basis points. The increase means it costs $131,000 a year to protect $10 million of GE debt, versus $123,000 on Thursday.
You Think?
The OZ
This is something that we clearly didn’t see until the end of the quarter, Immelt said on a conference call with analysts. What we did is try to reflect on that, not make excuses and take appropriate actions. The company’s fundamentals remain strong. We believe that the strategy and the fundamentals remain strong. Hey… folks does this sound strangely familiar… say hello to our CEO of the USA… Mr. Bush and his merry band of Tax Payers… thieves!
The OZ
Deal Journal is an up-to-the-minute take on deals and deal-makers, updated frequently with exclusive running commentary, news flashes, profiles, data and more. The Wall Street Journal's Heidi N. Moore and Dennis Berman are the lead writers, with contributions from other Journal reporters. Send news items, comments and questions to 
