Comment by manwithnoplan
5 hours ago
A lot of the comments here seem to assume that a smaller public company can’t acquire a larger one, which just isn’t true.
A quick search for how leveraged acquisitions, stock-for-stock deals, financing commitments, or tender offers work would answer most of the objections.
Is it too much to ask the Hacker News commentariat to do one quick search before collectively declaring that something they don’t understand is impossible?
There’s one comment as of the time of your post that makes this assumption - you could have replied to them directly.
It is implicitly implied in many comments.
“Implicitly implied” is redundant. Either of these phrasings would suffice:
> It is implicit in many comments.
> It is implied in many comments.
6 replies →
Links?
I see a single comment mentioning it is impossible. No sign of a collective declaration. I think you’re overreacting
I think you are under reacting.
Example from quite some time ago: Avast buying AVG. The value of AVG was around twice that of Avast.
AOL/TimeWarner, Kmart/Sears… lots of prominent examples.
Interesting how none of these are around anymore
Also when Capital Cities purchased ABC. A popular phrase coined by the media was "minnow swallows whale"
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/business/media/thomas-s-m...
> A quick search for how leveraged acquisitions, stock-for-stock deals, financing commitments, or tender offers work would answer most of the objections.
Isn’t the assumption that it’s impossible intuitively justified if you have no background in finances? A small fish usually can’t devour a bigger fish either.
Also, all those terms you mentioned mean nothing to me. You can’t search for what you don’t know exists.
But if it all goes sour nobody will be held accountable and two not one company are ruined.
I don't see how such leveraged acquisitions should be legal.
Is there anywhere a good breakdown of these leveraged acquisitions. Like a video or something that breaks down how that exactly works and why its legal and why the acquired company goes along with it. Its seems like such a strange mechanism. And the history of it.
They better not ruin eBay, it's actually a useful business, I use it all the time
Speaking as someone who used to know absolutely nothing about the world of high finance, yes, it is too much to ask.
Before I started paying attention to such things I wouldn't have known a single one of those terms to even begin googling.
And let's be honest here. A smaller company saddled with big debt buying out an even larger company really doesn't make logical sense. It makes financial sense, which is subject to different laws of mathematics, probably involving the waiter's check pad in an Italian bistro.
Agreed that Marvin would find this (and everything about Earth) ridiculous.
I propose this would make sense in the animal kingdom though; large, lumbering fatty walks along. It has big claws, but … it doesn’t look like it can be bothered to be dangerous anymore. Meanwhile a pack of hungry successful hunters walk alongside. To take this down, they will risk pretty much everything..
It’s the same story. The shareholders provide a sort of bet on if the big guy has still got it, or the risk-on hunters do.
That’s why the operational results got attention in Cohen’s letter — he’s telling Shareholders: “I turned around GameStop. I can turn this ship around, too.”
I imagine the vast majority of us do not have a problem understanding smaller companies can buy larger ones. Most of us are just incredulous that anyone is taking GameStop, especially Cohen, seriously.
I think we also all assume that it is probably not a healthy feature of capitalism.
> Is it too much to ask the Hacker News commentariat to do one quick search
Are you new here?