Not that bad

UK institutions don’t like equity-funded acquisitions, and they don’t like US deals. That much is clear. But even so, it is hard to see why Aviva’s market value should have dropped by a whacking £1.4bn since speculation started that it was about to buy AmerUs. After all, the US group was only ever going to cost the UK insurance giant a tad more than that. Aviva has now sugared the pill a bit. It is paying $69 a share for the AmerUs - rather less than the worst-case estimates of $80 which were ci...