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Initial Analysis on Merrill Lynch (MER) - Bank of America (BAC) Merger
By: The M&A Researcher   Wednesday, September 24, 2008 5:55 PM
Sectors: Finance
Symbols: BAC, MER, MSFT
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Despite what appears to be fairly widespread skepticism surrounding this deal, the bottom line is undeniable: Financial mergers rarely -- and not once in this publication's data base -- fail to reach completion. Whatever perceptions may exist regarding the rationale for the transaction, there is currently no reason to expect this deal to fall through or even be delayed. There are no regulatory concerns and there are certainly no legitimate shareholder issues foreseen in this situation. The current MER shareholder lawsuits are of the standard variety and will in all likelihood be settled unceremoniously well be for the company's special shareholder meeting.

stock chart BAC has been extremely consistent its recent major acquisitions, completing the Countrywide, MBNA, and FleetBoston deals in four to six months as originally anticipated. This transaction promises to follow the same path.

MER's primary regulators are the FDIC and OTS at the federal level, and the Utah DFI at the state level. At this point it is unclear which federal regulatory will be the lead, but it is the current expectation that the merger review will be expedited as was the case in the BSC-JPM transaction. If, and only if, formal reviews are required by all three regulators, the transaction is very likely to exceed four months and move into the five- ore perhaps six-month range.

As the former is more likely, the current closing projection is early/mid-February 2009.

For reference purposes, the following timeline chart will be provided:

Transaction Length
(Days)
$ HSR Fed SEC Misc
Countrywide Financial (CFC) - Bank of America (BAC) 173 4b 30 34 106  
Bear, Stearns (BSC) - JP Morgan (JPM) 76   <30 n/a 18

GFCO
3

MBNA Corp (KRB) - Bank of America Corp (BAC) 186 35b n/a 144 49

DE
71

UK OFT
<90

FleetBoston Financial (FBF) - Bank of America (BAC) 128 48b 30 115 63

OCC
101

UK OFT
42

ME
87

MA
63

Nuveen Investments, Inc. (JNC) - Madison Dearborn 147 5.4b 15 n/a 14  
A.G. Edwards Inc. (AGE) - Wachovia Corp. (WB) 124   8 35 63

GFCO
22

Investors Financial Services (IFIN) - State Street (STT) 148 4.5b n/a 85 89

Ireland
21

Canadian OFSI

UK FSA

VT

MA

Providian Financial (PVN) - Washington Mutual (WM) 118 6.5b n/a n/a 33

OTS
56

Neuberger Berman (NEU) - Lehman Brothers (LEH) 102 2.6b 30 n/a 48

OCC
83

DE
70

Household Int'l (HI) - HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC) 138 13b   n/a 69

See File

Dresdner Bank AG - Allianz AG (AZ) 114 21.6b >30 n/a n/a

EU
43

CIT Group, Inc. (CIT) - Tyco Int'l. Ltd. (TYC) 81 9.2b 17   26

Canadian Minister of Finance
51

EU
40

Utah DFI
31

J.P. Morgan (JPM) - Chase Manhattan (CMB) 110 33b 24 67 49

NY
71

Associates First (AFS) - Citigroup (C) 86 31.1b 28   21 OCC
74

EU
37

PaineWebber (PWJ) - UBS AG (UBS) 115 10.8b 14 - 63

4 States
+/- 60

First American (FAM)- AmSouth Bancorp (ASO) 123 6.3b   62  

TN
17



 

 
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