Public deal studies for your reading list

The deal that taught Wall Street what leverage could do

The original mega-LBO: a bidding war, junk bonds, PIK notes, and a mediocre payoff for the winner.

The most expensive lesson in what stock is really worth

An all-stock mega-merger at the bubble's peak that ended in the largest corporate loss ever reported.

Bought at the top, sold for one of the biggest profits in private equity history

Bought at the peak in 2007, restructured through the crisis, and exited for one of the biggest profits in PE history.

Buying Budweiser in the middle of a credit crisis

A $52bn unsolicited bid that turned friendly, financed with $45bn of bank debt during the worst week of the credit crisis.

Financing the largest tech deal ever, as a private company

$67bn, cash plus a new VMware-linked tracking stock, financed by a company that had gone private three years earlier.

The deal closed. Whether it worked is a different question.

$63bn for Monsanto, followed by glyphosate litigation, billions in write-downs, and a shareholder revolt.

The bidding war that rewrote the media map

A $52.4bn stock deal became a $71.3bn cash-and-stock war with Comcast, plus a DOJ-forced divestiture.

The MAC clause that almost worked

LVMH signed at $135 a share, tried to walk citing COVID and a French government letter, and settled at $131.50.

A signature is a contract, not a mood

Musk tried to escape a signed $44bn deal over bots. Delaware's specific-performance threat forced him to close it anyway.

Surviving the antitrust gauntlet

Microsoft's $68.7bn all-cash buy of Activision survived a UK block, an FTC lawsuit, and an EU review to close in 21 months.

Pricing a deal that might not close

Adobe's $20bn bid for Figma died under EU and UK antitrust pressure, Adobe paid a $1bn fee, and Figma later IPO'd above the old deal value.

The right of first refusal that almost blocked a $53bn merger

A $53bn all-stock oil merger that Exxon nearly blocked using a right of first refusal buried in a joint operating agreement.

Buying the network instead of renting it

Capital One bought Discover for $35.3bn in stock to own a card network instead of renting Visa and Mastercard's rails, then spent 15 months clearing Washington

A steel deal that turned into a two-year national security fight

Biden blocked it. Trump approved it with a government golden share. The full CFIUS saga behind a $14.9bn steel deal.

Paying up for certainty

Google paid $32bn for Wiz after Wiz turned down $23bn in 2024, then cleared a year of antitrust review. Closed March 2026.