W T Grimm Co

W. T. Grimm & Co., a firm that specializes in the purchase and sale of small to mid-sized companies and monitors the pace of corporate acquisitions, has become part of its own takeover statistics. Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch & Co. said Tuesday that it had acquired Chicago-based Grimm, recognized as a prominent source of information about merger and acquisition activity. The price was not disclosed. "The acquisition of W. T.

W. T. Grimm & Co., a firm that specializes in the purchase and sale of small to mid-sized companies and monitors the pace of corporate acquisitions, has become part of its own takeover statistics. Wall Street giant Merrill Lynch & Co. said Tuesday that it had acquired Chicago-based Grimm, recognized as a prominent source of information about merger and acquisition activity. The price was not disclosed. "The acquisition of W. T.

According to W. T. Grimm & Co., the value of all mergers and acquisitions providing a purchase price in 1985 surged to a record-breaking $179.6 billion, up from 1984's record of $122.2 billion. The merger consultants and publisher of Mergerstat Review said there were 3,001 deals announced in 1985, a 12-year record and an increase of 18% over 2,543 in 1984.

In spite of a second-half slowdown, both the number of mergers reported and the total value of such acquisitions increased last year, W. T. Grimm & Co. said. The merger consultant and publisher said acquisitions totaled 2,543 in 1984, up slightly from 2,533 in 1983. This was the highest annual count since 1974, when 2,861 deals were recorded. Grimm said megadeals in the oil and gas industry early in 1984 spread to other industries.

Corporations this year are paying more and getting less when they buy each other out, according to a report by the research firm of W. T. Grimm & Co. The number of mergers and acquisitions tumbled in the first six months of 1987, but the total dollar value continued to rise. Major deals boosted the 1987 price tag to a near-record level, with 17 mergers valued at more than $1 billion, compared to 10 the year before.

Companies headquartered in California continued to be most popular acquisition targets in the nation in 1984, according to W. T. Grimm & Co. It was the third straight year that California has led the annual survey, according to Grimm, a well-known Chicago consulting firm that specializes in mergers and acquisitions. Grimm's latest results show that 263 California-based firms were sold last year, more than double the 130 sold in 1982 and 26% higher than the 208 sold in 1983.

A wave of billion-dollar buyouts in the first half of the year swept corporate mergers to a record level, the research firm W. T. Grimm & Co. said Monday. The total value of acquisitions in the first six months of 1988 was the highest ever for a six-month period, at $129.4 billion, said Grimm, a subsidiary of Merrill Lynch & Co. The merger-tracking firm said the next highest total was reached in 1985's first half, when $100 billion worth of deals were made.

Leveraged buyout specialist Forstmann Little & Co. has agreed to acquire General Instrument, a cable television equipment manufacturer that owns San Diego-based VideoCipher, in a deal valued at $1.6 billion, the two companies announced Monday. The deal is not the largest leveraged buyout announced so far this year--that honor belongs to the proposed $4.4-billion employee buyout of UAL Corp., parent of United Airlines.

What are investors to think? Corporate raiders and Wall Street traders are bidding up the stocks of companies in which chances of a takeover are slim to none. In some cases, the action is bizarre. T. Boone Pickens, whose knowledge of aircraft is limited to the inside of his corporate jet, has declared an intention to buy part of Boeing Co.

Looking ahead, will the big federal case against Drexel Burnham Lambert have much effect? Even if the government put Drexel out of business, would that change much in the stock and bond markets? Not really. Drexel pioneered but others have settled the territory; other finance houses have adopted Drexel's investment innovations and aggressive style. And the atmosphere of accelerated change that nurtured Drexel's rise to prominence still prevails.