Mergers & Acquisitions

Congress has continued its 57-year tradition of passing an annual defense authorization bill with the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2019 finalized by Congress on August 1 and signed into law by President Trump on August 13. The NDAA makes important reforms and updates to the process by which investments in U.S. businesses by foreign persons are reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) and updates and codifies Department of Commerce practices related to export controls.

The global M&A market has remained strong from the end of 2017 into 2018, with the total deals announced in the first half of 2018 making it the best period for global M&A yet. With stockholders pressuring larger companies to grow their revenues and the strong liquidity position of many companies, it is a sellers’ market. For companies looking to sell and participate in the record-breaking 2018 global M&A market of $890.7 billion in Q1 and $889 billion closed with $1.3 billion announced in Q2,2 the toughest question is often how to start.

The Premerger Notification Office (the “PNO”) of the Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) recently issued a reminder about often overlooked “transactions” that may require notification under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (the “HSR Act”).

Last week a Delaware federal district court unsealed its earlier opinion blocking the merger of two radioactive waste disposal companies. 

Although the Federal Trade Commission currently is short-handed with one Democrat and one Republican serving on the Commission (out of a normal lineup of five), today they showed that bi-partisan consensus still can exist in Washington. 

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) and the State of Illinois successfully concluded their challenge to the proposed merger of Advocate Health Care and NorthShore University Health System earlier this month.

The IPO market in 2016 was abysmal, especially for the life sciences sector. Annual IPO proceeds fell to the lowest level since 2003. The IPO market forecast for 2017 is uncertain.

Recently, there have been a number of sales of well-known and well-respected craft breweries to the major beer producers. In addition, there have been a smaller number of sales of craft breweries to private equity investors. Is one type of buyer better than the other from the perspective of the selling brewery?

Join us this Friday at 1:30 pm EDT for a webinar with two of our Antitrust colleagues, Robert Kidwell and Bruce Sokler. They will discuss recent events in the Hershey Hospital merger and their impact on FTC's hospital merger enforcement program. Learn more about these recent updates from the comfort of your computer in our one-hour webinar.

On Tuesday, June 14, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois declined to temporarily block the proposed merger of Advocate Health Care Network and NorthShore University HealthSystem in the Chicago area, handing the FTC its second hospital merger loss this year.

The Third Circuit granted on Tuesday the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC”) request for an injunction pending appeal of the proposed merger between Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Pinnacle Health System. 

Over my three decades of practicing corporate law, I have helped hundreds of founders sell their businesses. In the process of helping them achieve a successful transaction, I have noted ten common mistakes that can cost the founders money by way of a lower sale price or higher expenses and that can delay or prevent the successful closing of the sale transaction.

When it comes to mergers and acquisitions involving at least one applicable large employer (ALE), the substantive rules governing employer shared responsibility (under Internal Revenue Code § 4980H) and the corresponding reporting rules (under Internal Revenue Code § 6056) share at least one thing in common: we don’t yet know how they work.