Trash talk

Should Waste Management shareholders try to trash its deal to buy rival garbage collector Republic Services? Earlier in the week, the largest US rubbish company increased its bid for Republic by 9% to $37 a share, or $8.2bn including debt. At least one large shareholder, Bill Gates, objects. Financially, the deal doesn’t look that compelling. Shareholders might want to encourage the board to back off. Consider this back of the envelope calculation. Waste Management says the combined company cou...