【沪江慢速VOA】1月23日: Merger是什么东东？(1)
Big and Bigger: Mergers and Acquisitions Stay Strong Into '07 (1/2)
Companies combined or bought other businesses at record levels last year. Almost 4 trillion dollars in deals worldwide represented an increase of nearly 40% from the year before. So far in January, merger and acquisition activity has remained strong.
In the airline industry, US Airways this month raised its recent offer to buy Delta to 10 billion dollars. If that goes through, there could be other airline deals coming.
General Electric has recently added some new manufacturers to its mix of businesses. But in the biggest deal of last year, AT&T merged with the telecommunications company BellSouth. That deal in the United States was valued at 73 billion dollars, not including debt.
The satellite radio industry has had increasing talk of a merger between XM and Sirius, the two major companies. But the head of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington said this week that one company could not own both operating licenses. With all the deals last year, investment banks did well. Goldman Sachs advised on more than four hundred mergers -- valued at over one trillion dollars. Citicorp and Morgan Stanley were not far behind.
