并购传闻如何不胫而走

    今年夏初，许多投资者在这方面吃了大亏。6月中旬，总部位于明尼阿波利斯的医疗器械制造商Medtronic发布公告称，该公司将斥资430亿美元收购爱尔兰竞争对手Covidien。几周来，伦敦和纽约等地的分析师一直觉得Medtronic正在欧洲挑选收购对象，目的是通过和当地公司合并来降低税率，就像其他几家美国医疗保健企业最近所做的那样。

    有些分析师从字里行间看出，这只是Medtronic将收购谁的问题。而Covidien一直都没有参与到这个“传闻链”中。6月4日，有消息称Medtronic将收购英国人工关节制造商Smith & Nephew。相关媒体报道让Smith & Nephew的股价上涨了12%。Summer Street Research Partners分析师兰迪上调了Smith & Nephew的目标价。兰迪承认，接受记者采访时，自己让这条消息变得更加可信。兰迪说：“有关Medtronic的传闻出现时，我说这很合情合理，原因是在我看来，Smith & Nephew对Medtronic来说是个切实的收购目标。”

    当Covidien披露真正的收购目标后，几乎没有哪个兜售传闻的人公开承认了自己的错误。相反，投资者和分析师开始再次酝酿传闻，他们猜想这个行业中的其他公司，比如强生（Johnson & Johnson）和史塞克公司（Stryker）也可能发起收购。

    本着让传闻延续下去的精神，几名投资者向《财富》透露了他们在并购方面的预期。有人在Mergerize.com上预测苹果公司将收购照相机厂商GoPro；还有人将一个关于Joy Global公司成为大宗期权交易对象的Twitter帖子解读为，这家设在密尔沃基州的采矿设备公司可能被收购，德罗根对此表示赞同。

    华莱士说，他一直在关注半导体公司博通（Broadcom），后者正计划剥离那些表现不够理想的业务，“摆脱这些业务后，博通就会成为一个良好的收购整合机会……”开始猜吧。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie

    Many investors learned this the hard way earlier this summer, when Minneapolis-based medical device maker Medtronic announced in mid-June that it would buy its Irish competitor Covidienfor $43 billion. For weeks, analysts from London to New York had been speculating that Medtronic had been shopping in Europe, looking to merge with a company there to secure a lower tax rate, as several other U.S. health care companies had recently done.

    For analysts reading between the lines, it was just a matter of who Medtronic would buy. Covidien, though, had never been part of the chain of rumors. By June 4, there were whispers that Medtronic would acquire British artificial joint manufacturer Smith &Nephew , whose shares rose 12% on the media reports. Landy, the Summer Street analyst, raised his price target for Smith & Nephew, and concedes that he helped perpetuate the theory when reporters called him. “When the Medtronic rumor broke, I said that makes good sense,” Landy says, “because to me, Smith & Nephew was a viable target for Medtronic.”

    When the actual target—Covidien—was announced, few rumor-mongers publicly admitted their mistake. Instead, investors and analysts began churning the rumor mill anew, speculating that other industry players, such as Johnson & Johnson and Stryker , might launch bids of their own.

    In the spirit of keeping the gossip going, several investors shared their own takeover theories with Fortune. Drogen agreed with one Mergerize prediction that Apple would buy GoPro, and interpreted a Twitter post about heavy options trading on Joy Global as a sign that the Milwaukee mining-equipment company might soon be acquired. Shortly after, Joy Global shares surged 8% in a single day. The reason? What else? Acquisition rumors.

    Wallace says he’s been watching Broadcom , a semiconductor company that is planning to sell off one of its underperforming units: “Once they get rid of that,” he says, “the rest of the business would make for a nice consolidation opportunity for somebody to buy….” Let the speculation begin.