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Strategies & Market Trends : Moomin Valley (formerly Troll-free Zone) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Moominoid who wrote (1703)	9/3/2006 12:49:38 AM
From: RealMuLan	Respond to of 2852

>>MSFT? LOL<< Why laugh? they are serious, and don't ever underestimate the greed of capitalists! But times have changed. Now the more mature tech companies are struggling to grow 10% a year. Iconic stocks such as Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC), EMC, and Dell (DELL) have been trading sideways, or worse, for years. With cash reserves on the rise as managers trim growth-related investments, dozens of name-brand companies now pop up on dealmakers' spreadsheets as LBO candidates. In July analysts at Prudential Equity Group screened a database for buyout targets and turned up names like Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Applied Materials (AMAT). Private-equity firms worldwide are expected to raise up to $280 billion this year, according to researcher Private Equity Intelligence, making megadeals suddenly seem possible. Says Prudential analyst Edward Keon: "Clearly, I'm exaggerating here, but what's the difference between a $30 billion deal and a $300 billion deal? It's just a few more phone calls. As more money flows into private equity, and the pressure to put it to work grows, it's possible that these deals get bigger and bigger." Practically speaking, there are limits. Sure, no company fits the slower-growth, high-cash-flow profile better than Microsoft. But it's hard to imagine financiers putting together the $84 billion in cash that would be required to do a $336 billion buyout, presuming buyout firms paid a 30% premium to its stock price and put up a quarter of that in equity. Instead, industry insiders say the biggest deal possible at this point is $50 billion—enough to make a run at chipmaker Texas Instruments (TXN) or perhaps PC maker Dell. businessweek.com