On Monday, Best Buy
purchased the full stake in its cell phone joint venture, ‘Best Buy
Mobile’ from its partner Carphone Warehouse Group for $1.3
billion. Although cancelling plans to open more stores in Europe,
Best Buy Mobile has been expanding rapidly in North America. The
seller gained 1.1%, while the electronics retailer lost 3.1%. The
following day, Italian suit maker Brioni was bought by PPR for an
undisclosed fee (expected to be around $450 million). The French
luxury goods group are hoping to attain a larger presence in the
men’s fashion market, despite already controlling Gucci and YSL.
They closed 2.4% higher. Also that day, Yum! Brand’s $566 million
acquisition of the Little Sheep Group, was cleared by the Chinese
Regulator. The Mongolian hot-pot retailer is currently the largest
restaurant operator in China. The news was met extremely positively
on the markets; the target was boosted 15.2% while the bidder was
grew by 1.8%.
The next wave of deals
came on Thursday, when Mitsubishi Corporation announced its largest
mining deal ever; buying almost 25% of Anglo American’s Chilean
Copper assets for $5.39 billion. Despite this move doubling the
copper output of the Japanese giant, they fell 4.9% as their
counterparty was up 3.6%. Tekelec was purchased by a private group
led by Sirus Capital for $780 million. The telecoms firm increased
14% by the bell. Also that day, Starbucks took over juice maker
Evolution Fresh for $30 million in an all-cash deal. They are looking
to project the success of their coffee products onto healthier
offerings in the juice industry. The US’s largest coffee chain
gained 1.3%. The following day, China’s largest oil refiner Sinopec purchased a 30 percent stake in the Brazillian operations
of Galp Energia for $5.2 billion. They are the latest in a string
of growth-oriented Chinese companies investing to obtain new energy
resources. The buyer was up 2.5% while Galp dropped almost 11%. Also
that day Vivendi, owner of the Universal Music Group, bought the
music division of the EMI Group from Citigroup for $1.9 billion.
The deal must be cleared by competition authorities in Europe before
contracts can be signed. The French media and telecommunications
company was boosted 2.6% as the seller closed 2.4% higher.
