Large moves continue to be made, with some running up against regulators and antitrust watchdogs. Following last month’s news that Elon Musk had moved to purchase Twitter and take it private for $44 billion, it has emerged that the SEC is probing his purchase of Twitter stock in early April1 over an alleged failure to properly disclose his stake. While there is currently no further information on this probe other than a letter sent to Musk in April, it has been speculated that the SEC may halt the Twitter deal – which is set to close within the coming months – on the grounds that Musk violated securities laws. This would likely have a strong negative effect on Twitter’s stock price, which has already seen a slight dip2 following news of the purchase being placed “on hold”. Elsewhere, the March-announced merger of Canadian telecom giants Roger Communications and Shaw Communications hit its own regulatory snags. Rogers’ planned $26 billion takeover of Shaw will be opposed by Canada’s Competition Bureau3, the companies revealed in a statement on 7 May. The commissioner filed an application to the Competition Tribunal with the aim of preventing the merger from going ahead. More news will be shared on this story in coming months as it develops. The tech space saw one of its biggest acquisitions to date in May with chipmaker Broadcom Inc’s announcement that it will acquire cloud computing company VMware Inc in a $61 billion cashand-stock deal.4 The acquisition, which represents a massive shift in focus for Broadcom towards software creation, is the second-largest such deal of the year to date, beaten only by Microsoft’s $68.7 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard in January. In IPO news, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has stated that he is exploring the possibility of a stock market flotation5 for the payments company once the SEC’s lawsuit against XRP ends, while the company behind viral YouTube sensation Baby Shark has dismissed speculation that it will pursue an IPO.6 Finally, Indian state-run insurance giant Life Insurance Corporation had its IPO in the first week of May with a 3.5% stake on offer – the largest share sale in India to date. The $2.75 billion share issue was fully subscribed a day after opening for sale to retail investors.7 What’sHappening in theWorldof M&As and IPOs? 104 WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM JUN 2022 1https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/27/technology/sec-elon-musk-twitter.html 2https://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-stock-tumbles-premarket-after-elon-musk-says-deal-is-on-hold-11652445126 3https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-shaw-competition-commissioner-1.6445426 4https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/chipmaker-broadcom-buy-vmware-61-bln-deal-2022-05-26/ 5https://www.fxstreet.com/cryptocurrencies/news/ripple-ceo-could-explore-ipo-after-end-of-sec-lawsuit-whales-continue-accumulation-202205290721 6https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-27/-baby-shark-producer-dismisses-speculation-of-1-billion-ipo 7https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-61296184
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Mjk3Mzkz