Recently in Mergers & Acquisitions Category

The American Bar Association (ABA) reports that two in-house legal attorneys claiming that they were fired for raising questions about potential securities fraud have been given the nod to pursue their claims as a result of a federal appeals ruling in the 9th Circuit.

In a case of first impression, the 9th Circuit appellate court held that under the whistleblower provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the attorneys do not have to prove actual fraud to bring forward the case.   The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals clarified, stating that "the success, or failure,of the [] lawsuit does not depend on [the attorneys'] ability to show any actual fraud, only that they reasonably believed that fraud had occurred."

And now looking to the friendly skies, Southwest Airlines last week confirmed its plan to submit a bid for the bankrupt Frontier Airlines.  By getting the nonbinding proposal off the ground, in line with the bankruptcy court's requirement, Southwest can now officially check-in with Frontier to request information and documents as part of its due diligence efforts to research the company.

Southwest may be number one in daily domestic flight operations, but it came in second in making a move for Frontier.  Indiana's Republic Airways submitted its $108.8 million bid earlier last month.  The bid was provisionally agreed to by the judge, so long as no better offer came along before August 10th 2009. 

And then Southwest flashed its boarding pass to the bankruptcy show.

When GM announced the sale of its Hummer brand, it was a rare bit of good news for the troubled automaker as it entered bankruptcy.  Unfortunately, it looks like the honeymoon's over for the Hummer deal.

GM sold Hummer to a dark horse Chinese company that specializes in manufacturing heavy trucks and highway equipment.  Any sale would have to go through Beijing, and state radio is reporting that regulators will likely reject the deal.

After a whirlwind trip to the Supreme Court, the Chrysler-Fiat deal has finally gone through.  The deal involved the purchase of the bulk of Chrysler's assets by the Italian automaker, and the creation of a new company outside of bankruptcy protection. 

The new company also has significantly less debt, fewer dealerships and reduced labor costs.  Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne becomes the CEO of the new company, Chrysler Group LLC.

Could it be?  Is Hummer moving to China? 

Yes, that quintessentially American vehicle - the lane-straddling, gas-guzzling Hummer - will soon be owned by a Chinese machinery company, according to a report by CNBC.

If the deal does in fact go down, it will constitute the first purchase of a major American car brand by a Chinese company.

It's a question for the ages: What's in a name?  Well, in the real estate industry, it turns out that sometimes a name contains a heaping portion of irony.

General Growth Properties, Inc. - the nation's second-largest shopping mall owner - has filed the largest real estate bankruptcy in US history after racking up $27 billion in debt to finance its meteoric . . . growth.

Express Scripts has announced that it will acquire WellPoint's pharmacy benefit manager unit, NextRx, in a deal totaling just under $4.68 billion in cash and stock.  The deal includes a 10-year contract for Express to provide prescription management services to Wellpoint once the deal actually closes.  NextRx provides services to roughly 25 million Americans, and manages 265 million prescriptions per year.

The purchase will position Express to compete with its major competitors in the sector, Medco Health Solutions and CVS Caremark.  With the acquisistion, Express will become the second largest player in the pharmacy benefits management sphere, suprassing its rival CVS Caremark.

WellPoint remains one of the country's largest insurers.

Cisco Systems, the maker of networking equipment, has announced its intent to purchase Tidal Software for $105 million in cash and retention-based incentives.

Tidal Software, headquartered in San Jose, CA and Houston, TX produces software that helps companies manage, automate and coordinate their applications.  The company's products include tools to monitor application performance and schedule jobs across machines and platforms.