Year of big deals, bigger flops
Bangladesh factories sack 1,500 for protests
BANGLADESH garment manufacturers have sacked at least 1,500 workers, police said yesterday, after protests over pay led to a weeklong shutdown at dozens of factories supplying top Western brands.
Tens of thousands of workers walked out of factories in the manufacturing hub of Ashulia that make clothing for top Western brands like GAP, Zara and H&M earlier this month, prompting concerns over supply during the holiday season.
Police branded the protests illegal and said they had arrested 30 workers including seven union leaders as well as a TV reporter covering the unrest.
Yesterday, they said factory owners had sacked around 1,500 workers and resumed operations, a week after shutting down to try to contain the protests.
The Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation meanwhile put the number sacked at 3,500 and said dozens of protest organisers had been forced into hiding.
“All the factories have resumed their operations. Some 90 percent of the workers have joined work,” said Nur Nabi, assistant superintendent of police.
“Around 1,500 workers have been sacked. The owners have filed five cases against the unruly workers,” he told AFP.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association has rejected the workers’ demand for their pay to be trebled from the current minimum monthly wage of 5,300 taka ($67).
Babul Akhter, head of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, accused authorities of using a controversial military-era law to shut down the protests.
“They used the Special Powers Act to detain union leaders and workers,” he said. “Up to 3,500 workers have been sacked and 50 leaders have gone into hiding.”
The Ashulia police chief said only those involved in violent protest had been arrested.
The protests were the latest blow to the impoverished country’s $30 billion garment industry, which has proved resilient to a series of attacks on foreigners and religious minorities in Bangladesh.
Garment manufacturing makes up 80 percent of Bangladesh’s exports and a prolonged interruption would have a major impact on the economy.
Bangladesh’s 4,500 garment factories have a woeful history of poor pay and conditions for their 4 million workers, and protests occur frequently.
IT MAY not have been a banner year for striking deals, but 2016 was a healthy time for breaking them. This year was the biggest in terms of volume for busted transactions – those withdrawn after being announced – since the depths of the financial crisis eight years ago, as big takeovers by the likes of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and the Oreos maker Mondelez were consigned to the scrap heap.
Some 1,009 takeovers worth $797.2 billion had been scrapped this year as of last Tuesday, a volume that had not been seen since 2007 and 2008. The broken deals accounted for almost a quarter of the $3.55 trillion in transactions announced over the past 12 months.
As the year winds down, it is worth remembering some of the most notable deals that did not come to pass, depriving bankers, lawyers and other advisers of millions of dollars in fees. Size of deal: $152 billion
A union of the two pharmaceutical companies, first announced a year ago, would have been the biggest takeover in 15 years. It would have yielded Pfizer the huge takeover that it had long coveted – and, perhaps more important, given it the chance to relocate its corporate home abroad to lower its tax bill. Unusually, the purchase of Botox maker Allergan would also have paved the way for Pfizer to eventually break itself in two.
But the Obama administration tweaked tax rules aimed at stymying corporate inver- sions, which an increasing number of US companies had been attempting to reduce their tax bills. Those changes eroded the financial advantages Pfizer hoped to reap from buying Allergan, leading the two to eventually part ways. Size of deal: $90 billion
When the two industrial conglomerates began speaking about a potential merger in spring 2015, it looked like a new titan, whose products would have run from thermostats to jet engines, was in the offing. But United Technologies’ desire to strike a deal fell as its stock price declined, while its executives disagreed with their Honeywell counterparts over who would control the combined company.
Honeywell persisted and went public early this year with a bid, arguing that a union could survive antitrust scrutiny. Yet United Technologies remained unwilling to combine. Size of deal: $32.7 billion
What was meant to be the creation of an energy giant quickly collapsed into a bitter fight fuelled by buyer’s remorse. Energy Transfer, an operator of pipelines, initially sought to buy its smaller rival.
But the slump in oil made the deal seem too expensive, leaving Energy Transfer to fight in the courts for a way to terminate the deal. Months of wrangling ensued, and in June a judge ruled that Energy Transfer had the right to walk away. Size of deal: $35 billion This energy industry deal was blocked by regulators. Buying Baker Hughes would have made Halliburton a more imposing company in the world of oil field services while cutting costs.
But the Justice Department had other ideas, suing to prevent the merger on antitrust grounds. The drop in oil prices since 2014 had impinged upon the two companies’ ability to sell off businesses to appease government regulators. Eventually, the two companies broke up. Size of beal: $23 billion
A bittersweet ending awaited Mondelez in its quest to buy the famed chocolate maker. Mondelez, owner of Cadbury and Nabisco, had sought to buy its confectionery competitor, hoping to succeed in a takeover when others like Wm Wrigley Jr had failed.
But a number of factors, from Hershey’s demands for a higher price to the legal uncertainty that surrounded Hershey’s biggest shareholder ultimately scuppered the bid. Size of deal: $14 billion
The bidding war for Starwood proved fierce, as Marriott International battled with a group led by Chinese insurer Anbang for control of the Westin and Sheraton hotel chains. By March, Anbang apparently had prevailed, as Marriott declined to raise its bid.
Somehow, Marriott caught a break. Anbang – which had already bought luxury hotels – mysteriously withdrew its bid with a polite letter, leaving advisers to Starwood questioning whether the Chinese government had intervened. That left Marriott the winner with a $13.3 billion offer. Size of deal: $6.3 billion
Though Staples and Office Depot stand astride the industry of selling paper clips and Post-it Notes to businesses, the two retailers have suffered from the rise of e-commerce giant Amazon. That led the two rivals to turn to a merger to try to revive their fortunes – the second time in two decades that they had tried to strike a deal.
But the Federal Trade Commission sued to block the proposed union on competitive grounds. In May, a federal judge sided with the government regulator and ruled that combining Staples and Office Depot would “substantially impair” the market for office supplies.