[Archives,02/14/1985] " FTC OFFICIAL : MARKET FORCES DICTATE MERGERS"--- Charles Jerome Ware, LLC, A National Law Firm

www.charlesjeromeware.com                      "Here to make a Difference."


[ From: The Baltimore News American, Thursday, February 14, 1985, FINANCIAL/BUSINESS Section: " FTC OFFICIAL : MARKET FORCES DICTATE MERGERS", Special to The News American by Financial/Business Reporter Eric Cade]


     " Fundamental market forces, not Reagan Administration policy, are the "driving force"
        behind recent broad-based mergers, a top official of the Federal Trade Commission told
        Baltimore security analysts.


        And, said Charles Jerome Ware, Special Legal Assistant to the Chairman of the FTC,
        for quite some time, corporate mergers and acquisitions have been a prime source of
        growth for American companies.


        Noting that antitrust enforcement currently is undergoing evolution rather than
        revolution, Ware said Congress should give the Justice Department and the ETC more
        time under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act --- currently about 30 days --- to thoroughly analyze
        transactions.


        Ware said the environment for leveraged buyouts --- a small group of investors buying
         a public company  by pledging its assets against the loan to buy it --- should
         be good this year.


        ' From a public policy perspective, leveraged buyouts will help the economy by returning
          ownership of companies to executives, giving them increased incentives to operate efficiently',
          Ware said.


         ' Mergers and acquisitions were once considered the territory of the "big-time wheeler-dealers".
           But, over the years, corporate mergers and acquisitions have evolved as the basic tools of
           corporate strategists and investors'.


           Last year saw some 2,930 mergers and acquisitions with a total value of $ 124 billion,
           including several major oil industry mergers --- all reviewed by the Commission.


          For 1985, Ware predicts :
                - Acquisitions and mergers at about the same level as in 1984.
                - Multibillion-dollar mergers leverage buyouts will decline from 1984 levels.
                - More mergers in the food, banking and health care industries.


           ' Apparently the differential between the asset value of companies and their stock-market
            values will continue to drive corporate break-up deals, in which investors purchase
            corporations and restructure them through the sale of most of the assets', said Ware.    
            ****** MORE.