German m&A Asymmetric hostility

Germany is the land of consensus. Hostile bids are verboten, right? The last global takeover bubble may have been marked by Vodafone’s record hostile bid for Mannesmann. But the German corporate elite is still shuddering from the after-effects of that bid battle. And, since then, there has been very little hostile action. Until now, that is. So far this year, BASF has made a $4.9bn (E4bn) unsolicited bid for Engelhard, the rival US chemicals group. Linde has made an unsolicited approach to BOC, ...