On the heels of the announcement AT&T was in the talks to acquire DTV, David Faber on CNBC mentioned he believed we will see a great deal more M&A going forward; that this is the perfect environment for it. Kos agrees. One way to be able to demand a higher price is to remove (absorb) the competition and shrink the space. Case in point; look at airlines.
Deregulation passed in 1978 created not only a surge in small, value brand names such as Southwest and AirTran. These low-cost names truly began to put pressure on larger airlines. Remember airfare wars? The winner was you and me so what's a larger airline to do to counteract these price ware? How can you demand a higher price? Absorb your competition.
This graphic shows how even back in 2010, just how many were merged with their larger counterparts. (click image to enlarge)
Sadly the loser will be the consumer as M&A means consolidation and layoffs. Wave goodbye to competitive consumer pricing.
The winner - stockholders.
Recently we’ve begun to see a spurt of M&A in healthcare, biotech and tech space. Names like AAPL, FB, GOOG, AZN, PFE and more. Is the M&A to continue? If companies want to command higher prices, they will.
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