Amit Raizada is an expert on mergers and acquisitions. Through his company, Spectrum Business Venture, he has been at the forefront of some of the largest mergers and acquisitions ever on the planet. After recently completing another multimillion dollar deals, he felt it was time to take a look at what some of the biggest deals in history actually were.
The 14th largest deal in the history of mergers and acquisitions was to the value of 47 billion British Pounds. This is when Royal Dutch Shell took over the BG Group. While this is a pretty massive deal, it wasn’t actually the biggest one ever. Rather, the biggest in the history of mergers and acquisitions was the AOL and Time Warner deal, which ultimately proved to be disastrous.
Looking specifically at the largest deal every within the oil and gas sector, the topper is the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999. This created ExxonMobil, which is how most people know them now. This merger came with a $80.3 billion price tage, which is pretty impressive. When Royal Dutch and Shell Transport and Trading merged four years before, in 1995, the cost was $80.1 billion. A close second, in other words.
It was also recently announced that Time Warner Cable will be taken over by Comcast Cable, for which they paid $45.2 billion. Time Warner has significant debt, and this means that the deal is actually valued at $67 billion, because Comcast Cable agreed to take the debt over as well. This has been confirmed by Amit Raizada, who used Bloomberg sources for his calculations.
These may sound like true mega deals, but they actually don’t even rank in the top 10 of the largest mergers and acquisitions in the history of the economy. The Time and Warner deal, as previously mentioned, was actually the biggest one. This cost $186.2 billion. By 2009, however, the two companies split up again.
So what are some of the other major mergers and acquisitions that have taken place? Raizada listed the following:
- Time Warner Inc acquired Historic TW Inc for $186.2 billion in 2000.
- Vodafone Group PLC acquired Vodafone Holding GmbH for $185 billion in 1999.
- Verizon Communications acquired Cellco Partnership for $130.1 billion in 2013.
- Shareholders acquired Philip Morris International for $107.6 billion in 2007.
- Multiple acquires purchased RBS Holdings NV for $100 billion in 2007.
- Pfizer Inc. acquired Warner-Lambert Co. for $87.3 billion in 1999.
- AT&T Inc. acquired BellSouth Corporation for $83.1 billion in 2006.
- Exxon Mobil Corporation acquired Mobil Corporation for $80.3 billion in 1998.
- Royal Dutch Shell PLC acquired Shell Transport & Trading Co for $80.1 billion in 2004.
- Comcast Corp. acquired Comcast Cable Communications for $76 billion in 2001.
- Sanofi acquired Aventis SA for $73.4 billion in 2004.
- GlaxoSmithKline PLC acquired SmithKline Beecham Ltd for $72.4 billion in 2000.
- Verizon Communications acquired GTE Corp for $71.1 billion in 1998.
- Citigroup Inc. acquired Citicorp/Old for $69.8 billion in 1998.
- AT&T Inc. acquired AT&T Teleholdings Inc. for $68.2 billion in 1998.
- Comcast Corp. acquired Time Warner Cable Inc. for $67.6 billion in 2014.
The names of quite a few of these businesses have changed over the years, so Raizada has provided some additional clarification:
- The biggest merger of all is the AOL-Time Warner merger. The current acquirer’s name is Time Warner.
- The second largest deal is in relation to Vodafone Airtouch, who acquired Mannesmann. Today, the acquirer is known as Vodafone Group.
- The tenth biggest deal refers to the moment Comcast was able to acquired AT&T Broadband.
- The fourteenth biggest deal is relation to the Citicorp and Travelers Group merger. Citicorp is now known as Citigroup.
- SBC Communications, in the fifteenth larges deal, is now known as AT&T.