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Breakups are expensive: when AT&T failed to purchase T-Mobile, it ended up with a $4 billion break up fee On March 20, 2011, AT&T announced a monster $39 billion deal to purchase T-Mobile from German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom. While it was questionable whether the deal would pass regulatory scrutiny, just months before Comcast and NBC completed their $30 billion merger, so AT&T thought, why not give it a shot? But the US Justice Department was quick to block on anti-competitive grounds, and AT&T knew if it went to trial, it would be a long, drawn out, but most importantly, uphill battle, so they terminated the deal. But baked into the merger agreement was a break fee. Usually, breakup fees are a low single-digit percentage of the deal’s value, but in this case, it was more like 10%: AT&T was on the hook to pay $3 billion in cash, as well as rights to some of the cellular airwaves aka spectrums that it owned, which had a book value of $1 billion, but a market value of $3 billion. To my knowledge, this $4 billion (conservatively speaking) breakup fee was the largest ever paid out. In comparison, the recently announced $35 billion merger between Capital One and Discover is similar in size, but the breakup fee is only $1.38 billion, or a third of what AT&T paid out more than a decade ago. $T $TMUS $COF $DFS #AT&T #T-Mobile #Merger #BreakupFee #DeutscheTelekom #RegulatoryScrutiny #Antitrust #JusticeDepartment #Comcast #NBC #MergerAgreement #Spectrum #CapitalOne #Discover #MergersAndAcquisitions #Telecommunications #Finance #BusinessDeal #CorporateNews #RegulatoryApproval #BusinessStrategy #FinancialRisk #MarketInsights #CorporateFinance Hope you enjoyed this finance fun fact! And if you own stocks, did you know you can sell your *shareholder voting proxies*? Most investors don’t have the time or interest to vote on directors or shareholder proposals. But instead of letting that shareholder vote go to waste, you can actually *sell it* to somebody who wants it. If you’re interested in monetizing your shareholder votes, check out my startup, Shareholder Vote Exchange (link in the bio). Shareholder Vote Exchange is the first-ever marketplace for shareholder voting rights, and I’m grateful to be one of the co-founders of this venture 🗳️ Learn more about monetizing your shareholder voting rights on Shareholder Vote Exchange: www.svegroup.com
Duration: 89 sPosted : Sat, 24 Feb 2024 20:00:07Views
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