Investors Say No Thanks To Overpriced Acquisitions

Merger Monday is back, but the market’s not buying it. Comcast (CMCSA), Michael Kors (KORS), and Sirius XM (SIRI) all announced multi-billion-dollar acquisitions on Monday. The market responded by sending shares of all three companies deep into the red.

The big drop in all three stocks – which fell by an average of 8% – shows that investors do not want any of these companies to carry out these overpriced acquisitions. Meanwhile, the ongoing struggles of Newell Brands (NWL), which fell a further 6% on Monday and is down 50% over the past year, shows exactly how these acquisitions can destroy even more shareholder value if they are consummated.

Market Reaction Shows Deals Are Overpriced

Comcast made the biggest splash over the weekend, beating out Fox (FOXA) in a blind auction with a $49 billion bid for UK broadcaster Sky. The cable giant’s $22.60/share offer represents a 61% premium to the initial Fox offer in December 2016 that kicked off the bidding war. The market believes that Comcast overpaid by $11 billion (~22%) based on CMCSA’s corresponding $11 billion drop in market value.

Michael Kors also made waves on Monday with its $2 billion deal to acquire the Italian fashion house, Gianni Versace. Despite Versace’s slim margins and stagnant growth, KORS was willing to pay a premium to move into the high-end European fashion market. The market believes that the firm overpaid by $850 million (~36%) based on KORS’s corresponding $850 million drop in market value.

SIRI Investors Have the Most to Worry About

The biggest overpay, however, comes from Sirius XM, which agreed to pay $3.5 billion to take control of Pandora Media (P). We put Pandora in the Danger Zone in March 2017, but we closed our short call just two months later (after an 18% drop in stock price) due to the risk of a stupid money acquisition just like this one.

The market’s reaction suggests that investors agree with our assessment that Pandora has little-to-no value. SIRI lost ~$3.1 billion in market cap on Monday or ~87% of the proposed acquisition value.