Article by Krista Hill, Michael Pickersgill,
Joris Hogan, James C. Tory, Ian Arellano, Blair Keefe, Jay
Romagnoli, Richard Willoughby, Patricia Koval, Patrice
Walch-Watson, Stephen Donovan, Cameron Koziskie, Paul Cowling,
Sharon Geraghty, Cheryl Reicin, Phil Mohtadi, Sue-Anne Fox, Jay
Holsten and Omar Wakil
We predict that 2010 will be remembered as a comeback year with
significant M&A activity. While 2009 was a slow year in the
M&A space, in 2010 the pickup in M&A activity will be
considerable.
We expect activity to include acquisitions in the
"green" and media and telecom sectors. Life sciences will
continue to be robust though mid-market focused. Well-run Canadian
pension funds and banks will also take advantage of their relative
strength to make international acquisitions. Large conglomerates,
including financial institutions, will carve out their non-core
assets....
Specific Questions relating to this article should be addressed directly to the author.
Multilateral development banks spend $70bn each year on loans and grants to the developing world. In April 2010, for example, the World Bank approved a $3.75bn loan to South Africa-based Eskom Holdings, to build one of the world’s largest and most complex power plants.
On August 30, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced the issuance of its longanticipated final rules for off-exchange foreign currency transactions (forex) with retail customers.
Although credit rating organizations (CROs) are not currently subject to formal securities regulatory oversight in Canada, they nonetheless play an important role in Canadian securities legislation.
The FDIC is currently responding to one of the worst financial crises in the history of the nation’s banking system. Sheila Bair, Chairman of the FDIC, expects that 2010 "will be the high water mark for the banking crisis."
On August 25, 2010, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC" or "Commission"), by a 3-2 vote, adopted final rules (the "Adopting Release") on facilitating shareholder director nominations through issuer proxy statements, culminating years of consideration of this issue.
In M&A transactions, many lawyers (and clients) assume that employee benefits issues are tangential to the overall business deal and will "work themselves out" after the deal closes.
Many West European and US companies have thinned out their ranks of middle management in the never-ending pursuit of shareholder value. A China project is likely to be more time intensive and involved (and therefore expensive) than the foreign company initially forecasts. For this reason many foreign investors in China face difficulties in assembling a successful business project team to implement the project. Part I discusses the assembling of an effective in-house team.
On May 26, 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") approved amendments to Rule 15c2- 12 that will expand the continuing disclosure obligations of issuers and other obligated persons in municipal finance transactions.
