Last week got off to an
extremely sluggish start deal-wise, with no major announcements until
Wednesday. BJ’s Wholesale Club sold itself to two private equity
firms; Leonard Green & Partners and CVC Capital for $2.8 billion
in an all-cash deal. This news, which adds to the recent trend of
retailer buyouts, was well received by the markets; BJs was up by
4.6%. Troubled social networking site MySpace was sold by News
Corporation to Specific Media for $35 million. The once lucrative
website was originally purchased by the media giant for $580 million
before being overtaken in popularity by Facebook. It had become
increasingly unprofitable, and the sellers, who had been looking to
dispose of it, were up 1.25%.
On Friday, Nortel
Networks, the bankrupt telecommunications manufacturer, sold $4.5
billion worth of patent assets to a group of technology companies
which included Microsoft, Apple, Research in Motion, EMC and Sony
Ericsson. The alliance fought off competition from rivals like Google
and Intel. The seller was up 42%, while the buyers’ biggest gainers
included Apple which was boosted 2.3% and EMC up 1%. Providence
Equity Partners purchased Blackboard Inc for $1.64 billion. The
firm, which makes university coursework software, was up 1.8% by the
bell. Internet domain registration giant Go Daddy sold itself to KKR and Silver Lake for $2.25 billion. KKR ended the week up 1.5%.
Also that day, the New York Times Company sold a stake in the
Boston Red Sox worth $117 million in order to generate cash to help
them in the current financial slump. The seller’s share price was
relatively unaffected by this news.
