Merger Arbitrage Mondays – June 18, 2018

Merger activity increased last week with two new deals announced and five pending deals closing. Several deals with large spreads on account of regulatory hurdles including Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto, AT&T’s (T) acquisition of Time Warner and China Oceanwide’s acquisition of Genworth (GNW) recently managed to get past those hurdles.

For a while last week it looked like Qualcomm’s (QCOM) acquisition of NXP Semiconductors (NXPI) would get past its last hurdle of approval by Chinese regulators but then it turned out that celebrations were premature. There were three semiconductor deals with large spreads a few weeks ago including the acquisition of Microsemi Corporation by Microchip Technology Incorporated (MCHP), the acquisition of Cavium (CAVM) by Marvell Technology Group (MRVL) and the acquisition of NXP Semiconductors by Qualcomm. The Microsemi acquisition closed on May 29th and the spreads on the other semiconductor deals narrowed considerably in May. Whether the NXPI deal gets the final nod from Chinese regulators will partly depend on ZTE’s fate and the growing trade war between the U.S. and China, which has now moved past the sable rattling phase.

You can find all the active deals listed below in our Merger Arbitrage Tool (MAT) that automatically updates itself during market hours.

There were no new deals announced in the Deals in the Works section.

Deal Statistics:

New Deals:

1. The acquisition of Envision Healthcare Corporation (EVHC) by KKR for $9.9 billion or $46.00 per share in cash. We added EVHC as a potential deal to the Deals in the Works section on November 14, 2017 and the price after the news of the potential deal came out was $28.52.
2. The acquisition of USG Corporation (USG) by Knauf for $7 billion or $44.00 per share in cash. We added USG as a potential deal to the Deals in the Works section on May 1, 2018 and the price after the news of the potential deal came out was $42.00.

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