Investor’s Remorse Follows Buyer’s Remorse as Big Deals Fall Apart – The New York Times

Major sectors continue to collapse at a dizzying pace …

“A spate of corporate deal remorse has left investors regretful, too … They all help make the case for heightened shareholder skepticism.

[ Big drug company ]’s latest effort to wriggle out of the deal pushed them below where they were trading before the sale.

Verizon, too, is having second thoughts about paying $4.8 billion for Yahoo’s core business …

Likewise, the oil and gas pipeline operator Energy Transfer Equity this summer successfully backed out of its $33 billion deal … on a tax-related technicality — after trying for months to escape.

Even as the Justice Department tries to block Anthem’s $48 billion acquisition of Cigna, the American health insurers are at odds over the merger.

Such ructions can be expected at the peak of a merger frenzy and as the cycle starts to turn DOWN.

In deals of over $1 billion in the United States, the average wait from a deal’s announcement to closing is at its longest in over a decade — 148 days …

The longer the lag, the more likely problems will crop up.

Even astute M.&A. watchers have been caught wrong-footed … … …

Better to be safe than sorry.”