Anheuser-Busch Sold for $50 Billion
Anheuser-Busch agreed to sell to Belgium's InBev last night, demonstrating that all the howls about American pride were mere haggling over price. All it took was raising the offer to $70 per share from $65 per share -- "a 27 percent premium over Anheuser's record-high stock price in October 2002" -- and giving a Busch a seat on ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on July 14, 2008 06:32
InstaPundit Moves to Pajamas Media
Pajamas Media has announced that Glenn Reynolds' InstaPundit blog has moved to their servers. Today Pajamas Media shook the blogosphere with a major site development announcement: InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds is becoming a part of the PJM main portal. Reynolds, who averages more than six million page views per month according to Nielsen, was recently named one of the Forbes Top ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 13, 2008 11:25
Insurgency as Business
Steven Metz has a useful primer on "21st Century Insurgency" in the new issue of Parameters, the professional journal of the Army War College. Particularly interesting is his analysis of the similarities between insurgencies and businesses: As in commercial markets, participants in a complex conflict may enter as small, personalistic companies. Some may resemble family businesses built on kinship or ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on April 14, 2008 12:52
XM-Sirius Merger Approved by DOJ
The Sirius-XM merger is one step closer to fruition. The U.S. Justice Department approved the merger between satellite radio companies Sirius and XM Monday, more than a year after the two companies first announced their deal. In its decision, the Department of Justice had to determine whether an XM-Sirius merger was anti-competitive, or if other media companies such as Clear Channel (CCU, ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 24, 2008 14:34
Eliot Spitzer Resigns. Finally. For Real This Time
New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has finally resigned. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is resigning following intense pressure to step down because of a prostitution scandal. Spitzer says his resignation is effective Monday. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to resign, completing a stunning fall from ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 12, 2008 10:52
Yahoo Sued for Spurning Microsoft
Some Yahoo shareholders are suing their board over their handling of the Microsoft takeover bid. Two Detroit pension funds have sued Yahoo Inc. and its board of directors, saying they breached their duties to shareholders in trying to thwart a takeover by Microsoft Corp. [...] According to the lawsuit, Yahoo's board is pursuing "value-destructive" third-party deals in an effort to fight off ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 23, 2008 06:56
Google Universal Search
Google is combining all its search products into a "Universal Search" integrating static Web pages, news, and video. Universal Search means that standard Google searches will draw results from separate properties covering books, local information, images, news, and video, said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search and user experience. "It's breaking down the silos of information that have been built up. It's ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on May 17, 2007 10:58
Broadcasters Trying to Kill XM-Sirius Merger
Tim Carney notes that the National Association of Broadcasters have hired John Ashcroft to represent them in fighting the proposed merger of XM and Sirius on anti-trust grounds. The money quote: "The logical question, then, is: why do the broadcasters care so much about a powerful XM-Sirius if they are not in competition with XM-Sirius?"Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on March 9, 2007 07:13
XM-Sirius Merger Anti-Trust Implications
Richard Siklos and Andrew Ross Sorkin provide a solid analysis of the XM-Sirius merger and its chances of surviving regulatory scrutiny. They're right, I think, that the issue is "whether regulators will see a combination of XM and Sirius as a monopoly of satellite radio communications or whether they will consider other audio entertainment, like iPods, Internet radio and ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on February 20, 2007 10:02
New York and Tokyo Stock Exchange Alliance
The New York Stock Exchange and Tokyo Stock Exchange have announced an alliance that "is also a first step toward a possible merger or acquisition between the two exchanges when the TSE becomes a public company in 2009." In the short term, it "allows the two stock markets to cooperate on joint developments such as financial products, mutual listings ...Posted in Outside The Beltway | OTB on January 31, 2007 09:19
