Journalists
Rob Cox helped establish breakingviews in 2000 in London. From 2004 he spearheaded the firm's expansion in the US and edited its American edition, including the daily breakingviews column in the New York Times. Prior to joining breakingviews, Rob held senior editorial positions at Bloomberg News in London, Milan and New York. Rob is a frequent contributor on CNBC and his work has appeared in many prestigious publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine the Times, Esquire, Barron's and the Daily Telegraph. He is a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Vermont.
Bank of America is struggling to replace CEO Ken Lewis. The job looks miserable. Regulators are unfriendly, the board is a mess and the pay would be low - at least to start. But once the collection of prime assets is cooking, Jamie Dimon should watch his back, says Rob Cox.
HP’s $2.7bn purchase of 3Com puts it squarely into Cisco’s realm. But Cisco’s already gunning after HP in servers. As Oracle-Sun, Dell-Perot and other deals suggest the traditional frontiers in technology no longer apply. The battlefield is wide open.
Its centrepiece is the creation of a single über-regulator for banks. This has its charms. It would avoid giving new power to the Fed and should reduce the risk of regulatory capture. But the experience of Britain’s FSA suggests structure alone won’t ensure effective regulation.
Bernie Sanders’ ‘Too Big to Fail’ act proposes that if a firm is so big that its failure would threaten the system, it should be broken up – not protected by a bailout. As simple as it sounds, its explicit tone trumps competing bills in capitalistic clarity.
Stanley Works is buying Black & Decker for $3.5bn in a deal that leaves almost nothing for investors in the two companies to fret over. If only deal-making was always this simple.
The troubled US business lender fought hard, including bending over backwards to dissident Carl Icahn, to have its pre-packaged filing accepted by creditors. But the harder task still remains: convincing the world it has a reason to exist beyond Chapter 11.
The US industrial conglomerate may finally part ways with the media arm it spent 24 years and at least $33bn assembling. A Comcast deal valuing NBC at $24bn wouldn’t be a total disaster – but Rob Cox and Aliza Rosenbaum say it’s hardly a vindication of GE's management philosophy.
Ken Jacobs may not be as prolific a dealmaker as Bruce Wasserstein was – or even as Gary Parr is today. But he has long been part of the glue that binds the historically fractious firm. Naming him as CEO is a sensible move to assure continuity.
The group’s "imaginative" move into financial services has hobbled it relative to rival United Technologies, which is poised to purchase some of GE’s assets. Though the industrial sides of the two companies look remarkably alike, the divergence in their fortunes is striking.
By formalising its £10bn bid the US group is hoping the UK confectioner’s shareholders will lobby the board to talk. Without adding a penny - yet - that’s risky. But it also brings in arbs - whose view of value is simply a profit. That could shift the outcome in Kraft’s favour.
The team, which clinched its 27th World Series, is the sport’s most valuable franchise, top money-maker and pays more than anyone else for talent. And like the investment bank across the river from the Bronx, its success inspires either deep admiration or intense scorn.
The investment bank’s dodgy real estate portfolio precipitated its collapse a year ago. But Lehman’s demise added value to a mostly unremarkable art collection. The pictures cruised past auction estimates. There’s no accounting for taste – or emotion – in asset valuation.
The Dutch brewer probably can’t finance Femsa's $7.5bn-plus price tag with debt alone. To buy its Mexican partner, the family-controlled brewer would need to issue equity. Rob Cox and Aliza Rosenbaum show how it can do so without the family losing control - or spending a euro.
No banker did more to make the dispensation of M&A advice an industry in its own right than the now-deceased Lazard chairman. That legacy hasn’t always benefitted investors. But it will continue to define Wall Street for generations.