#mergers--acquisitions

#mergers--acquisitions

Bending Spoons, the Italian software company that has bought up a range of other digital businesses like Evernote, MeetUp, WeTransfer, and soon Vimeo, announced plans to purchase AOL from Yahoo after securing a $2.8 billion debt financing package. Over the past couple of decades, AOL has been passed from company to company, merging with Time Warner in 2001 before getting spun off and sold to Verizon in 2015 for $4.4 billion.

The disclosure followed public overtures from Paramount, which reportedly was willing to pay as much as $24 per share, or around $60 billion total, for the publicly traded media company. WarnerBros. Discovery rejected that offer as too low, and hopes to drum up additional interest by publicly putting itself up for sale. Any potential deal, regardless of the ultimate identity of the winning bidder, will almost inevitably reshape the streaming landscape, which in turn could have major consequences for consumers.

We began undertaking this strategy to sort of encircle the city back in 2020, Howard Hoby Hanna IV, the president and CEO of Howard Hanna, said. We were in upstate New York and we thought it was a strategic move to sort of move down the state and then throughout parts of the tri-state area with New Jersey and Connecticut. The city was always an attraction, but we knew that it is a very different market.

We've been in the acquisition M&A space for a long time. It's been a way for us to continue to grow in the retail channel, as well as organically. But this came up where, as stewards of our companies, we have to really think about what the world is going to look like in five to 10 years. She added that the new ownership provides a lot more value and a lot more horsepower.

The title business is very relationship driven and many local title company owners have this fear that the industry will be disrupted in a way that hurts these local relationships, Natalia Karayaneva, the CEO of Propy, said. These companies want to be more efficient and we want the local relationships they have, so these acquisitions are a win for everyone.

Ripple is a goofy business. For more than a decade now, the company has held vast quantities of magic beans known as XRP, which it dumps onto the market at regular intervals. It's not clear why anyone needs these magic beans, but people buy them anyway, and that has made Ripple very rich-so rich that this week it casually spent $1 billion to buy a treasury management company called GTreasury.

What began as one family's desperate attempt to save their dog has become the largest and fastest-growing veterinary group in the Middle East. CEO Mansoor Alshiha transformed personal tragedy into a mission to revolutionize animal care - and built Vet Alliance in the process. It all started with Dutchie, the Alshiha family dog who nearly died after being hit by a car. At the time, Dubai had no dedicated 24-hour emergency care for pets. The family was forced to improvise - and that moment changed the trajectory of veterinary medicine in the UAE.

The acquisition advances a strategy outlined when European growth investor Verdane took a majority stake in Cropster in October 2024, signaling an intent to expand internationally through mergers and acquisitions. Cropster has not publicly disclosed the financial terms of the Firescope acquisition, but a company announcement today said further acquisitions are planned as Cropster deploys a "sizable war chest" from Verdane.

Charlie Javice got in trouble because some of her startup's customers were fake. She's now facing some real consequences. It's significantly more than the 18 months Javice's legal team had been hoping for. Federal prosecutors, meanwhile, were aiming for a 12-year sentence. Javice could have been sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. The only problem? Frank never had data for more than 300,000 users. Javice's sentencing could also have some wider implications.

Videogame giant Electronic Arts will be closing a deal for the largest buyout of all time, valued at around $55bn (£40.91). Investors include private-equity firm Silver Lake, and Saudi Arabia's Private Investment Fund, among others. The transaction is slated to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2027. Under the agreement, Electronic Arts shareholders will receive USD$210 (£156) per share in cash, a 25% premium on the stock's closing price on 25th September.

In the span of less than two years, Core Scientific went from a bankrupt crypto mining company to a $9 billion acquisition target. How? By reinventing itself as an upstart player in the artificial intelligence-driven data center craze. Only now, one of the company's largest shareholders is urging other investors to vote down the deal - arguing that $9 billion isn't nearly enough. While a takeover battle between little-known data center firms might seem like

This is a financially compelling transaction, funded entirely from our excess capital and available liquidity sources without issuing new equity. By bringing together Inigo's strong performance with our capital strength, we are diversifying beyond our traditional mortgage insurance market and expanding into the large and attractive Lloyd's global specialty market, Rick Thornberry, CEO of Radian, said in a statement.

In our nine years of covering video platform Vimeo, we have seen it win legal appeals related to copyright issues around pre-1972 music uploads, and the installation of CEO Anjali Sud in 2017. Most recently in January, the company persevered in a copyright lawsuit with major music labels. Today we learn that Vimeo has agreed to an acquisition by European digital technology company Bending Spoons.

As AI technologies evolve, it is important to consider the effects chatbots can have on children, while also ensuring that the United States maintains its role as a global leader in this new and exciting industry. The study we're launching today will help us better understand how AI firms are developing their products and the steps they are taking to protect children.

Paramount Skydance is reportedly preparing a takeover offer for Warner Bros Discovery, in a bid to pull together two of the largest US legacy media conglomerates and Hollywood movie studios. Less than a month after Skydance, a production firm run by David Ellison, son of the billionaire tech mogul Larry Ellison, closed its merger with Paramount, the firm is considering other blockbuster deals. Paramount is preparing a majority cash bid for WBD that would be backed by the Ellison family, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the situation. Paramount and WBD did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

OpenAI has agreed to buy product testing startup Statsig for $1.1 billion in an all-stock deal, the company said, marking one of the largest acquisitions in the ChatGPT maker's history. Statsig, founded in 2021, builds tools to help software developers test and flag potential new features. Its services have been used by employees at OpenAI, Eventbrite Inc., SoundCloud Ltd. and other tech firms, according to Statsig's website.

As the NCTA's new head, Gardner will be representing the interests of Comcast, Charter, and other cable companies. He can be expected to continue the group's long-term fight against government regulations applied to cable TV and broadband providers. He won't have much trouble convincing the current FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, who has embarked on a project to " delete" as many telecom regulations as possible.