Earlier this month (February 2, 2021) the rideshare and delivery giant Uber announced its 1.1 billion USD acquisition of Drizly, an on-demand alcohol marketplace. Despite the modest size of the transaction, representing roughly 1% of Uber’s total market value, Uber’s shares rose around 7% upon announcement. As for Drizly, with a modest valuation of 73 million…

Read More

On the 5th of August 2020, one of the largest healthcare deals in 2020 was announced: multinational healthcare giant Teladoc’s 18.5 billion USD acquisition of digital health-management company Livongo, with American Investment Bank Piper Sandler valuing the joint firm at a reported 37 billion USD. Throughout the deal process, Teladoc and Livongo’s financial advisers were…

Read More

‘A match made in heaven’: these were the words of Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff following the completion of his company’s acquisition of the enterprise communication platform, Slack. The deal, announced on the 15th December 2020, is set to cost Salesforce approximately 27.7 billion USD. Relating to Slack, a company that is currently valued at around…

Read More

ExxonMobil has long been a market leader in oil & gas. The direct descendent of Standard Oil Co., Rockefeller’s oil empire, which was the largest refiner in the world at its height, ExxonMobil remains the company with the sixth largest net revenue in the world. However, after several bleak years beginning in 2015, the company’s…

Read More

First synthesised successfully in 1954, synthetic diamonds have become ever easier and efficient to produce, especially over the last 20 years, aided by growing technology. Synthetic diamonds, not just aesthetically but chemically and physically identical to their naturally formed counterparts, are increasingly posing a threat to the mined diamond industry. According to a report commissioned…

Read More

Big pharmaceutical companies’ credit ratings in the United States have been steadily dropping in the eyes of rating agencies since 2014. There have since been approximately 20 downgrades and only three upgrades among investment-grade firms. Despite these companies receiving acclaim for their rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the strong barriers to competition in the…

Read More

Worldwide prescription drug spending has been on the rise for several decades, as new research discoveries have propelled the sale of life-changing medicines. However, the prices of prescription drugs are not equal among nations, with the US consistently ranking among the highest in the world (see Figure 1). For example, research in 2018 found that…

Read More

The UK has long been criticized by the pharmaceutical industry for the slow rate at which the NHS receives new medicines. According to an analysis by Pfizer in 2017, the UK has a 75 per cent lower uptake of new drugs in their first year of release, rivalled by France, Switzerland, the US, and Germany.…

Read More

Given that more than 45% of Brazil’s total energy consumption will come from green energy by 2023, it may seem strange that Petrobras will have a limited role in this transition. The oil company, which is controlled by the Brazilian government but is also listed in the New York and Sao Paulo stock exchanges, is…

Read More