M&A frenzy: a bid too far

Phew! Just when it seems as though the global merger boom can’t get any hotter, the temperature goes up another notch. What’s been extraordinary about last week’s slew of multi-billion deals, however, has not been their size as much their price. The offers by Canada’s Thomson for news group Reuters, HeidelbergCement for Britain’s Hanson, Mylan for Merck’s generic drug division and Microsoft for internet advertising firm aQuantive have all been sky-high. This is a worrying sign for anyone concer...