{"id":43226,"date":"2018-06-14T09:38:02","date_gmt":"2018-06-14T13:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=43226"},"modified":"2018-06-14T09:38:02","modified_gmt":"2018-06-14T13:38:02","slug":"big-merger-time-opportunities-and-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.technologyinvestor.com\/?p=43226","title":{"rendered":"Big Merger Time. Opportunities and Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Big Merger<\/strong> time. Personally I wouldn’t touch the stock of the acquirer or the acquired.<\/p>\n

There are reasons for Big Mergers, like hungry investment banks and incentivized management.<\/p>\n

In my brain, there are two forces working agains<\/strong>t the long-term success of these gargantuan mergers — evolving technology and the sheer impossibility\u00a0 of managing gargantuan combined firms. I speak from personal experience.<\/p>\n

A big company bought my little company.<\/p>\n

My little company was heavily into print — magazines and books. Then came the Internet.<\/p>\n

My little gave the acquiring managers more to manage. That got them raises and bigger titles. Then they left for greener pastures.<\/p>\n

Meantime, what they bought from me wasted away with neglect and hurt by new technology.<\/p>\n

Can you imagine what will happen at AT&T — a phone company — and Time Warner — a media company? Who of talent will want to work in that behemoth?<\/p>\n

If I were younger I’d start something in competition to bits and pieces of the combined business.<\/p>\n

I bet Jeff Bezos has his eyes peeled.<\/p>\n

Have you seen his stock lately?<\/p>\n

\"AmazonTwoYears\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hot buzz<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

IQ, the Netflix of China.<\/p>\n

Here’s the real reason hedge funds give you ideas.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hedge funds love to pitch stocks to investors at conferences and then exit those positions right after, according to a paper published by Patrick Luo, a Harvard Business School Ph.D. candidate who analyzed 341 stocks pitches by 29 hedge funds over five years.<\/p>\n

His paper, published in May, shows how those stocks outperformed the market before<\/strong> managers pitched them.\u00a0After the pitch, the stocks’ growth tended to slow drastically as the funds sold off their stakes.<\/p>\n

Luo found that stocks pitched by hedge funds tend to gain an impressive 20% return in the 18 months before the pitch. Afterward, that growth slows dramatically, though Luo notes stocks tend to still outperform the benchmark\u00a0 by about 7%<\/p>\n

You can read more on BusinessInsider<\/em> here<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>or Luo’s full paper here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Neat Father’s Day Present<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"irrigator\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It’s a battery-powered, Bluetooth-equipped $69 device to turn your irrigation on and off. You can join several together and build yourself a\u00a0 sophisticated irrigation system. Techhive<\/em> picked it. Read more. Click here.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Buddy Hackett’s Duck Joke<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You loved yesterday’s Buddy Hackett joke. Here’s another one.<\/p>\n