Bryan Matthews

Canadian Natural buys Devon.     Canadian Natural Resources buys the Canada assets of Devon Energy for $2.8 billion.     The deal, for Devon’s Jackfish oil sands project, heavy oil assets, 735 employees, and 1.5 million acres, firms up CNR’s position as the country’s biggest oil and gas producer.     Tim McKay of Canadian Natural said the assets give the company new opportunities to add value and deliver further balance to their production profile.  ‘These high-quality assets complement our existing asset base and give further balance to our production profile, while not increasing the need for incremental market access out of western Canada, as it's existing production.  The assets give us the opportunity to add value through synergies, including facility consolidation and operating and marketing efficiency opportunities, with targeted benefits of C$135 million on an annualized basis.  Through economies of scale, as well as complementary research and development efforts, we

Investcorp buys Mercury.     Alternative-assets manager Investcorp buys placement agent and advisory firm Mercury Capital Advisors Group.     Mercury has broad experience providing advisory services on direct deals and co-investments, joint ventures, and secondary transactions, as well as consulting for general partners.     Mohammed Alardhi of Investcorp said: ‘Our partnership with Mercury is in line with Investcorp’s long-term strategy and our mission to serve investors worldwide with an array of attractive opportunities in alternative investments. Mercury is well positioned to deliver unique solutions to clients across the globe through its traditional placement capabilities.’     Michael Ricciardi of Mercury said: ‘This partnership is a powerful endorsement of Mercury’s unrelenting commitment both to excellence and to our clients. We have known the Investcorp team for years and believe they are the right partners with whom we can expand our capabilities. We a

Merck buys Peloton.     Merck buys Peloton Therapeutics for $1.05 billion.     Peloton's molecular therapy biotech treatments for patients with cancer and other non-oncology diseases are now in clinical trials.  Peloton is focused on developing treatments that target a pathway activated by low oxygen levels.     This deal builds out the Merck oncology pipeline, strengthening its presence in the field of renal cell carcinoma.  Merck’s blockbuster immunotherapy Keytruda, that helps turn the immune system against cancer cells, was approved last month in the United States.     Peloton will begin studying its lead drug, a kidney cancer treatment with the catchy code name PT2977, in a late-stage trial in the second half of 2019.  In earlier mid-stage trials, testing patients whose cancer had spread even after treatment with at least one therapy, 24% of patients treated with Peloton’s drug showed a 30% shrinkage of targeted lesions.      Roger Perlmutter of Merck Research Labora

HPE buys Cray.     Hewlett Packard Enterprise buys Cray for $1.3 billion.     The deal opens out HPE’s reach with enterprise, government, and academic buyers of high-performance computing systems.  The company has a natural ability to speed up commercial supercomputing adoption.  It will also lower the cost of Cray's technology such as Slingshot, a high-speed network linking computing nodes into one big supercomputer.     Cray’s systems handle massive data sets, converged modeling, simulation, artificial intelligence, and analytics workloads.  Besides supercomputers, Cray offers high-performance storage, low-latency high-performance HPC interconnects, a full HPC system software stack and programming environment, data analytics, and artificial intelligence solutions – all integrated.     Cray has a $600 million Exascale contract with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the world’s fastest supercomputer.  The system will help radical research and artificial intelligence usi

Sisense buys Periscope Data.     Sisense offers a business intelligence platform that allows you to turn your data into interactive visualizations. You don’t need profound analytics savoir-faire to use it. The software mashes up disparate data sets, building and embedding apps and intuitive data exploration.     Periscope Data offers an analytics platform with predictive modeling and data science for the cloud. The software builds out broad data integration features that give you the power to blend information from multiple sources into a single dashboard.      The merger foresees a change of business. Where all enterprises, whatever industry, product, or service, will be data-driven. The plan is to combine offerings in an end-to-end analytics platform, helping both regular business users and specialists. Sisense ’s current product will be the platform’s foundation. Stack extension comes from Periscope Data’s integration features, connectors for third-party analytics

Froneri buys Tip Top.     Froneri buys Tip Top from Fonterra for $250 million.     Tip Top is New Zealand’s favorite ice cream.  Froneri is a joint venture between PAI Partners and Nestle.     Ibrahim Najafi of Froneri said: ‘We have always admired Tip Top, which is an iconic brand in New Zealand with a long proud history, and we are looking forward to welcoming the team into Froneri.  Our vision is to build the world’s best ice cream company.  An important part of our strategy is to develop local market successes and roll them out across our other markets.     Our customers are at the heart of our business, and we intend to invest in the Tip Top brands, products, and manufacturing facility to make sure we continue to excite the market and New Zealanders with delicious high-quality ice cream made from fresh New Zealand milk and cream.’  Kim Ballinger of Tip Top said: ‘As part of the Froneri family we will enjoy Froneri’s scale and abilities while continuing to support our

Brewin Dolphin buys Investec .     Brewin Dolphin buys Investec's wealth management business for $49 million.     Investec chose to sell when its Irish business model and Brexit planning changed.      The deal is structured so Brewin Dolphin (Ireland) buys the firm with an investment team and basic support staff to run their expanded business. This delivers cost synergy benefits from completion and minimizes integration risk.     David Nicol of Brewin Dolphin said: ‘This acquisition, which is consistent with our strategy of growth in assets under management, provides us with an exciting opportunity to strengthen our existing presence in the Republic of Ireland, one of Europe's fastest-growing economies.      We will also be in a stronger position to benefit from the country's growing demand for discretionary and advice-led services, supported by favorable demographics, with the country having the youngest population in Europe.     

Sinclair buys Disney.     Sinclair Broadcast Group buys 21 Regional Sports Networks and Fox College Sports from The Walt Disney Company for $10.6 billion.     The RSNs in the deal are Fox Sports Arizona, Fox Sports Detroit, Fox Sports Florida, Fox Sports Sun, Fox Sports North, Fox Sports Wisconsin, Fox Sports Ohio, SportsTime Ohio, Fox Sports South, Fox Sports Carolina, Fox Sports Tennessee, Fox Sports Southeast, Fox Sports Southwest, Fox Sports Oklahoma, Fox Sports New Orleans, Fox Sports Midwest, Fox Sports Kansas City, Fox Sports Indiana, Fox Sports San Diego, Fox Sports West, and Prime Ticket.      This gives Sinclair local broadcast rights to 42 professional teams. 14 Major League Baseball teams, 16 National Basketball Association teams, and 12 National Hockey League teams. The deal does not include 21st Century Fox's equity interest in the Yes Network, the disposition of which is a requisite part of an agreement with the US Department of Justice.     

Oyo buys The @Leisure Group.     Oyo buys The @Leisure Group from Axel Springer for $415 million.     The @Leisure Group manages 30,000 holiday homes across 13 countries in Europe and lists a further 85,000 on its online booking platform.  This reflects a preference for private properties rather than hotel rooms.  An obvious opportunity to build a global brand in the vacation rental sector.  Its offerings include the full-service providers Belvilla and DanCenter and the online holiday home marketplace Traum-Ferienwohnungen.      Oyo has scaled fast with a tech-driven franchise model, focusing mainly on small hotels.  636,000 hotel rooms in 24 countries at a recent count.  They already claim to be the world’s 6th largest hotel brand by room numbers and aim to be the biggest by 2023.  This deal boosts Oyo’s presence in short-term property rental, an increasingly important part of its business.      Ritesh Agarwal of Oyo said: ‘We believe we can create a hotel-like consistency