Atul Karmarkar.Com

Consolidation seems to be the name of the game in the international aviation industry as well, as Alitalia has accepted Air France-KLM’s $1.1 billion bid.  The Air France-KLM offer values the airline at $216 million, which is lesser than expected, with a share swap ratio of 1 Air France share for every 160 Alitalia shares. Air France-KLM would pay $946 [...]

Infrastructure Development Finance Corporation (IDFC) has decided to buy the mutual fund business of Standard Chartered for $205 million (Rs.830 crore). This is significantly higher than the $135 million UBS was willing to shell out a year ago. The UK major has a 74.9% stake in the AMC with the remaining being held by Atul Choksey, the former [...]

Standard Chartered Bank has finally received the go-ahead from the RBI to acquire American Express Bank in a $823 million cash deal. This happened after the RBI permitted AEB to transfer its credit card business to American Express Banking Corporation (AEBC).  AmEx wanted to retain its credit card and travel business in India by transferring it to a non-banking finance [...]

Following the decision by HDFC Bank and Centurion Bank of Punjab to merge, the HDFC Bank board has finalised the share swap ratio as 1:29, which means 1 share (FV-Rs.10) in HDFC Bank for every 29 shares (FV-Re.1) held in Centurion Bank of Punjab. The board is scheduled to meet again on 28th Feb to decide further  course of action, [...]

In what is likely to be one of the biggest mergers seen in India Inc., HDFC Bank is all set to take over Centurion Bank of Punjab in an all-share deal. The boards of both banks are to meet on 25-Feb to decide on the swap ratio. Ernst & Young and Dalal & Shah have been appointed to determine the [...]

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has become the single largest shareholder in Kraft Foods Inc., the world’s second-biggest foodmaker. According to regulatory filings, Berkshire owned 132.4 million shares (around 8.6%) of Kraft, worth approximately $3.9 billion. A spokeswoman for Kraft, Perry Yeatman, said’

Microsoft announced that it was planning to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo common stock for per share consideration of $31 representing a total equity value of approximately $44.6 billion.  This offer represents a 62% premium over the closing price of Yahoo common stock on Jan. 31, 2008. This is not the first time Microsoft has eyed it’s [...]