Alibaba $2.5 bln buyout looks opportunistic

By Wei Gu

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

Jack Ma may have failed to buy back a stake in his e-commerce group Alibaba from U.S. partner Yahoo, but he has at least found a fallback plan. Ma has offered $2.5 billion to take his Hong Kong-listed unit, Alibaba.com private. The premium, 46 pct to the company’s last price before the deal was announced, is decent, and minority investors have no better options. But it still looks opportunistic.

Deloitte caught in Diamond Foods’ glare

By Jeffrey Goldfarb
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Deloitte can’t seem to avoid the spotlight. Just a few months ago, it became the first of the Big Four accounting firms to be publicly shamed by their U.S. regulator for past failings. And now another client, Diamond Foods, has admitted to botching two years of financial reports. Deloitte could be headed back into the spotlight.

UPS love letter validates TNT’s earlier break-up

By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

UPS’s 4.9 billion euro ($6.4 billion) love letter validates TNT Express’s recent divorce. The U.S. parcel service has admired its smaller Dutch peer for years, and proposed just before Valentine’s Day. TNT is thinking about it. But clearly its 2011 split from PostNL, the dowdy domestic mail business, is finally achieving the desired effect.

Congratulations Google, you’re now a conglomerate

By Robert Cyran
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. Congratulations Google, you’re now a conglomerate. U.S. and EU antitrust authorities have cleared the search firm’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola. Its foray into manufacturing phones and tablets might open new markets – or simply amount to a vital means of defending its core advertising business. Whatever the case, on Wall Street, diversification like this usually merits a valuation discount.

Sure, the purchase of Motorola helps protect Google’s intellectual property. The cellphone maker’s several thousand patents shore up the walls protecting Google’s Android operating system from software and hardware rivals alike. But the company has made it clear from the start that its purchase wasn’t only about intellectual property – it was also about making gadgets.

Kellogg rescues P&G from over-cleverness

By Rob Cox
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

“Half the cleverness, none of the risk” makes an apt cereal-box slogan for Procter & Gamble’s sale of Pringles to Corn Flakes-to-Froot Loops giant Kellogg. By offloading the chips business for $2.7 billion in cash, P&G swaps a complex structure that, while it would have saved on payments to the tax man, put the consumer giant’s corporate finance competencies to a severe test.

And what may be P&G’s loss looks like Kellogg’s gain. While the cereals group is plunking down 15 percent more in cash than Diamond Foods had originally agreed to pay in new stock, the accompanying cost savings more than justify the premium. In a nutshell, this is a reasonable outcome, not least because P&G emerges with a valuable lesson the rest of Corporate America would be wise to observe.

Alibaba and Yahoo could live unhappily ever after

By Wei Gu

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

Talks on Alibaba buying back Yahoo’s stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant seem to have faltered. Valuation, structure and financing appear to be the key roadblocks. With more strain added to the unhappy relationship, Yahoo and Alibaba need to rebuild trust before heading back to the negotiation table.

Why the league-table bonanza at Glencore-Xstrata?

By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

How many banks does it take to put together a friendly, all-share merger ? and one that’s been on the cards for years anyway? If the companies are Glencore and Xstrata, the punchline is seven ? plus a lone banker acting as go-between. And despite the abundance of expensive wisdom informing the negotiations, this mega mining deal clearly needs wider shareholder support.

Dreamworks’ China deal won’t be access all areas

By Wei Gu
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own

Dreamworks may soon get an exclusive ticket to China’s closely guarded film industry. The U.S. studio is likely to announce a joint venture with China-based investors during Vice President Xi Jinping’s visit to California on Feb. 17, a person familiar with the situation has told Breakingviews. It should be a good deal for the creators of “Kung Fu Panda”, but does little to lower the Great Wall around film distribution in the People’s Republic.

Complexity caps allure of Yahoo’s Alibaba solution

By Robert Cyran
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Yahoo sounds closer to finding a solution for its long-running Alibaba problem. A mostly cash split-off promises a tax-efficient way for the troubled U.S. Internet firm to slash its stake in its Chinese rival. But the deal is getting so elaborate, it could dilute the benefits for Yahoo shareholders.

Glencore-Xstrata gatecrashers in short supply

By Quentin Webb

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

There’s never been a better time to bid for Xstrata. Glencore’s 34 percent stake has always been a stumbling block but now some Xstrata shareholders oppose an all-share merger proposal from the commodity trader. That backlash could build, and both boards would have to consider any credible counter-bids. An auction may not be probable ? but it isn’t impossible.