Transactions: Featured Interviews 78 Chess’ Acquisition of CyberLab 80 Consórcio Mineira da Sorte’s Contract With Loteria do Estado de Minas Gerais 82 Newable Compliance Invests in OJ Health and Safety Solutions August has been a busy month for deals, with several significant mergers receiving the nod from regulators while a possible tech IPO resurgence rears its head. High street fast food mainstay Subway looks set to be released from family ownership after receiving a $9.55 billion buyout offer from private equity firm Roark Capital, according to multiple news outlets.1 The deal marks the end of a prolonged auction that has continued since February and has seen interest generated from a range of investment firms. The DeLuca and Buck families were reportedly seeking an offer of more than $10 billion for the company, but bidding firms determined that it was worth less due to having reached US market saturation. Other major deals have seen several regulatory breakthroughs this month. In a lengthy and continuing saga, Microsoft has dramatically reworked its $69 billion bid to buy video game giant Activision Blizzard2, proposing to transfer its cloud gaming rights to French gaming company Ubisoft in order to assuage UK regulators’ monopoly concerns. In the tech sector, the CMA has ended months of deliberation by clearing Broadcom’s $61 billion bid to acquire leading virtualisation company VMware.3 On the healthcare and pharmaceuticals side, excitement was spurred by FTC’s announcement that it would withdraw its challenge to Amgen’s $27.8 billion purchase of Horizon Therapeutics4, though the agency has not yet committed to settling the case. Further deals in the sector were also announced, with life sciences firm Danaher Corp agreeing to buy protein consumables manufacturer Abcam for $5.7 billion5 and UAE-backed healthcare provider PureHealth moved to buy UK hospital operator Circle for $1.2 billion.6 Tech investors have received welcome news of IPO plans from several key firms. The wave was kicked off by SoftBank-owned chip designer Arm, which declared its plans to debut on the Nasdaq seven years after being taken private in a $32 billion deal.7 The news was followed by almost simultaneous announcements of planned stark market flotations from grocery delivery company Instacart and marketing automation firm Klaviyo.8 We look forward to seeing the development of these plans and whether they portend a more optimistic future for tech firms on the stock market after recent years’ disappointments. 1https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-24/roarkcapital-is-set-to-win-bidding-for-sandwich-chain-subway 2https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/28/microsoft-brad-smith-on-newactivision-deal-up-to-uks-cma-regulators.html 3https://www.computerweekly.com/news/366549152/UKcompetition-watchdog-gives-Broadcom-VMware-deal-green-lightto-go-ahead 4https://seekingalpha.com/news/4006558-horizon-therapeuticsjumps-as-ftc-withdraws-in-house-trial-on-28b-amgen-deal 5https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/medical-tech-firm-danaherbuy-abcam-deal-valued-57-bln-2023-08-28/ 6https://www.ft.com/content/c1f80e47-2cf6-4601-ad17f9001ad4ad94 7https://www.barrons.com/articles/arm-holdings-ipo-stock-tickersoftbank-3f9b642b 8https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/08/25/instacartklaviyo-will-go-public-should-be-two-of-the-largest-ipos-since-2021/ Mergers & Acquisitions 85 Octavius Infrastructure Acquires R&W 87 The Sale of Stellantis Otomotiv Pazarlama to Tofaş Türk Otomobil Fabrikası Funds & Investments 84 IHC and JGDB take 87% of Grupo Nutresa
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