Where the Sun don’t shine

Not all sellers are adjusting to the new merger market. Dealmakers – like the US lawyers and bankers gathered in New Orleans last week - were hopeful that the expectations of buyers and sellers are aligning. But deals like IBM planned purchase of Sun Microsystems, which is now on the rocks, suggest such optimism is premature. On the face of it, IBM’s $7bn deal to buy Sun Micro seemed surefire. Sun’s major market, servers, is imploding. So it was shopping itself around. IBM’s terms seemed genero...