Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

Hostile Takeovers by the Numbers

Dealbook reports:

Since 1998, there have been 44 bids valued at more than $10 billion that were initially considered hostile by the board of the target company. Of those, 18 bids, or 41 percent, led to a completed transaction. But 20 of them, or 45 percent, were withdrawn without a deal. ...

At first glance, those figures might not bode well for Microsoft’s $44.6 billion Yahoo bid. But the results skew the other way when you focus on the biggest of the big hostile bids.

Among the top 10 hostile bids in the last decade, 6 have led to completed deals, 2 were withdrawn and 2 are still pending. One of the withdrawn bids was Elf Aquitaine’s failed attempt to mount a “Pac-Man” defense by offering to buy its hostile suitor, the oil conglomerate TotalFina, whose bid succeeded.

It would be interesting to know why the deals that failed did so. Did the target have a posion pill (or poison pill/classified board combo?)? Was there an effective state anti-takeover law in the way? Antitrust obstacles? Financial problems?