M&A: another week, another $5B. Update: Make it $6B.

Another busy week in perspective:

• The Financial Times reported over the week-end that an acquisition of Instinet was about to be announced, for  $1.8B. Nasdaq would buy the electronic trading platform, whilst Roger Mc Namee's Silver Lake Partners would acquire the brokerage operation. It is actually not clear whether the $1.8B figure covers the latter business (Dow Jones values it at an additional $400M)
  Nasdaq already bought Brut and the Brut ECN last September for $190M. Brut was one of the properties of Sungard Data Systems, which has just been acquired for $11.3B by a syndicate of Private Equity firms led by... Silver Lake Partners (the largest tech buyout ever). Small world...
  
  Reuters, which would receive $1B if the deal closes as reported, was still a major owner of INGP. It had announced their intentions to get out of the electronic business last year. I still remember when INET went public at $14 in 2001 (and I sold it for $20 or so).
  
  Update: CBS MarketWatch reports that Nasdaq has announced the $1.88B acquisition of the Instinet group.

Instinet stockholders will receive approximately $1.88 billion in cash. Nasdaq will pay $934.5 million, according to the terms of the deal, while private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners will pay $207.5 million. The balance comes from Inet's available cash, including approximately $174 million from Bank of New York.
Instinet's other major unit -- Instinet, the Institutional Broker -- will be acquired by Silver Lake once Nasdaq completes its acquisition.
Bank of New York will acquire Instinet's Lynch Jones & Ryan Inc. unit, which provides commission recapture services to institutional clients.
Nasdaq will go into debt to pay for the deal. The market will issue $750 million in six-year corporate bonds and another $205 million in convertible notes to cover the costs of the acquisition.
Silver Lake Partners and buyout firm Hellman & Friedman LLC, Nasdaq's largest shareholder, will receive warrants to purchase additional shares of the Nasdaq.

• CBS MarketWatch reports that Adobe Systems and Macromedia's board of directors have approved the an all-stock acquisition of MACR by ADBE for $3.4B, at a 25% premium of the last closing price of MACR. Shareholders of Macromedia will own 18% of the resulting company, which will be led by Adobe's CEO, Bruce Chizen and will have combined revenues of  $2.14B.  And Adobe will buy back $1B worth of stock after the close of the transaction.
  
  "Customers are calling for integrated software solutions that enable them to create, manage and deliver a wide range of compelling content and applications – from documents and images to audio and video," said Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe. "By combining our powerful development, authoring and collaboration software – along with the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash – Adobe has the opportunity to bring this vision to life with an industry-defining technology platform."
  The press release is here.

More: ZDNet UK positions the combo against Microsoft, CNET reports on the conference call Chizen held this morning. And don't miss Marc Canter's take (as the founder of Macromind).
Jason Kottke has one of the most comprehensive roundup on the deal.

• A couple of days ago, the New-York Stock Exchange has announced that it was acquiring Archipelago Holdings, which runs another ECN, ArcaEx. The value of the transaction has not been reported, but AX had a market cap of $885M the day of the announcement. Again, CBS MarketWatch has a good coverage of the news, including market and regulatory implications.
   

Comments

[Bill Burnham]

Silver Lake also was a big backer of The Island ECN via its stake in Datek. From what I hear these days, the heart of Instinet is basically Island. I tried to put a deal together in 2000 to have the NASDAQ, E*Trade, and Waterhouse all invest in Island. I guess the NASDAQ guys finally are coming around!