Yesterday at the MountainWest Capital Network Deal Flow Luncheon, we received copies of the full-year deal flow book. The data is available on-line at www.mwcn.org.
The summary data is as follows:
|
Deal Type |
Number of Deals |
Value of Deals |
| Public Offerings |
4 |
$1,853,225,000 |
| Venture Capital/Private Equity |
84 |
$ 417,345,797 |
| Mergers and Acquisitions |
32 |
$6,905,724,000 |
| Total |
120 |
$9,176,294,797 |
No one will mistake Utah's deal flow for Silicon Valley, but (with apologies to the deceased) this ain't your father's Utah Deal Flow!
At the luncheon, the CFO of SkyWest (Nasdaq: SKYW), Bradford R. Rich, spoke. Having just completed the $2 billion acquisition of Atlantic Southeast Airlines from Delta Airlines, the audience listened with rapt attention. The deal was typical of the big Utah deals this year: Utah companies made large acquisitions of out-of-state companies, making Utah a player in the U.S. marketplace more than in any past year.
Mr. Rich commented on something that I thought was noteworthy. In striving to put together a deal, they sought out the strengths of both parties in order to yield value to both buyer and seller.
The transaction has been well received on Wall Street, leading me to conclude that the dealmaking approach he described worked well.
I, for one, found that thought provoking. I don't know that every dealmaker starts out with the object of creating value for the folks on the other side of the table!
Update: see also Paul Allen's post on this same topic.
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Admittedly, I don't know much about the Skywest/Delta deal other than that Delta initiated the discussions. If this was the case, I would expect that Skywest had most of the leverage in the negotiation, especially considering the perilous state of Delta's finances, and used it to their advantage. I wonder if Mr. Rich was merely being gracious, given that he was speaking in public, about the dynamics of the transaction? Call me cynical, but i would expect this transaction was done on very favorable terms for Skywest given Delta's weak negotiating position. Capitalism can be very Darwinian.
Posted by: Bconnery | March 18, 2006 11:14 AM | Permalink to Comment