The document summarizes the top 10 business deals of 2010. Some of the major deals included United Airlines and Continental Airlines merging to form the world's largest airline, GM's record-breaking $23.1 billion IPO, Sanofi-Aventis' $18.5 billion hostile bid for Genzyme, MetLife acquiring part of AIG for $16 billion, China's Agricultural Bank of China raising $22 billion in its IPO, Unilever buying Alberto Culver for $3.7 billion, Warren Buffett hiring Todd Combs to eventually replace him, 3G Capital buying Burger King for $3.3 billion, and Southwest Airlines acquiring AirTran for $1.4 billion.

1. TOP 10 BUSINESS DEALS OF 2010
TOP 10 BUSINESS DEALS IN 2010
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2. UNITED UNITES WITH CONTINENTAL
The airline industry consolidated yet again in 2010.
• In a May, United and Continental
announced a $3.2 billion hook-up to
create the world's largest airline.
• When the integration is completed,
the company will serve 378 airports
with hubs in 10 cities. It will have
5,811 daily departures and an
estimated 144 million passengers a
year.
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3. GENERAL MOTORS' IPO
GM's initial public offering is set to raise as much as $23.1 billion making it the
biggest IPO ever and giving Washington the opportunity to call its bailout of
"Government Motors" a success.
• The shares, which were priced originally
around $27.50 each, eventually sold for
$33. The interest in the deal partly
driven by GM's rebounding fortunes. The
company earned $5 billion in the first
nine months of the year.
• If it ends up in the black in 2010, which
looks likely, it will be the car company's
first annual profit since 2004. Uncle Sam
poured nearly $50 billion in GM at the
height of the recession to save the car
company from liquidation.
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4. SANOFI-AVENTIS MAKES HOSTILE BID FOR
GENZYME
• If completed, the French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis' $18.5 billion cash offer for
biotech firm Genzyme would be the biggest takeover of the year.
• Sanofi wants Genzyme because of its portfolio of drugs that fight such rare
conditions as Fabry disease, which is genetic disorder that typically causes kidney
failure in 30-somethings. But the deal is still an if. Genzyme's board of directors says
it want Genzyme to up its offer to nearly $24 billion.
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5. METLIFE PICKS UP A PIECE OF AIG
Last year, MetLife's combative former CEO Robert Benmosche took on the job of
trying to turn around AIG, and pay back the $130 billion in assistance the insurer
got from the U.S. government at the height of the financial crisis. This year he
struck a number of deals that gets him a lot closer.
• One was to sell AIG's international life insurance
company Alico to his former employer. The deal
generated $16 billion for AIG, of which nearly $7
billion was in cash.
• The rest was in MetLife stock. All told, AIG now has
nearly $40 billion in cash, and AIG's stock increased
nearly 40% in the first ten months of the year.
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6. AGRICULTURE BANK OF CHINA GOES PUBLIC
Last summer's Agricultural Bank of China initial public offering briefly created
something that was unthinkable a decade ago: Communist China had produced
Wall Street's largest IPO ever. (The GM IPO later topped it.)
• The deal raised $22 billion, and valued the
financial institution at nearly $100 billion,
making it among the most valuable banks in the
world.
• Ag Bank's IPO was another symbol of China's
prosperity. Xiang Junbo, an award-winning
scriptwriter and war hero, heads the bank. Ag
Bank has 24,000 branches, 441,000 employees
and 320 million customers — more than the
population of the U.S.
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7. UNILEVER BUYS ALBERTO CULVER
• It was a deal with a lot of lather in it. Unilever's $3.7 billion acquisition of
Alberto Culver in September bought together the producer of Dove and
Pond's with the maker of haircare products TRESumme and VO5.
• Consumer staples do relatively well in weak economies. So it makes sense
the Dutch conglomerate would want to expand in an area like shampoos,
which for most is a must have household item, even during a recession
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8. WARREN BUFFETT ACQUIRES A SUCCESSOR
The hiring of an investment manager isn't normally big news. But when a
39-year-old hedge fund manager gets picked to eventually replace 80-
year-old legend Warren Buffett it makes international headlines.
• Todd Combs will leave his job at hedge fund Castle
Point Capital Management in Greenwich, Conn., at
the end of 2010 to join Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway.
But Berkshire is expected to split Buffett's job in two
when he retires.
• Buffett helped set up Combs at Castle Point five years
ago by finding him seed money from a private equity
firm.
• But Buffett may have picked Combs because of what
he hasn't invested in. Comb's fund specializes in
financial services companies. Yet he has managed to
avoid most of the long list of blow-ups of the past
three years including AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers or Washington
Mutual. 'Don't lose money' is one of Buffett's classic
investment rules.
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9. PRIVATE EQUITY FIRM 3G BUYS BURGER KING
The fast food business got a whopper of a deal in 2010
• In late summer, Brazilian private equity
firm 3G paid $3.3 billion to acquire the fast
food staple Burger King. In part, the
acquisition is another sign that the burger
business is sizzling.
• Burger King was the second big burger deal
of the year. In February, private equity firm
Apollo paid nearly $700 million for CKE
Restaurants, which owns BK rivals Carl's Jr.
and Hardee's.
A few years ago, BK's management decided to refocus the chain on its loyal 18-to-34 year-
old customers. But that age group has had among the highest rates of job loss during the
recession. BK's new owners say they will get growth outside the U.S. Burger King still
generates two-thirds of its revenue from the U.S. and Canada.
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10. SOUTHWEST BUYS AIRTRAN
There was more than one sky hook-up in 2010. In a surprise deal, Southwest,
the nation's largest low-cost carrier, acquired its smaller rival AirTran for $1.4
billion.
• The deal expands Southwest's geographic
reach. Most of AirTran's routes are in the
Northeast, where Southwest is unsurprisingly
weak.
• Southwest felt it needed to add scale to stay
competitive. The need to reduce seat capacity
is behind the big deals. For years the industry
has had too many planes chasing too few
passengers, killing profits. That's changing. For
consumers, though, the result will be higher
average ticket prices.
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11. IBM SELLS 1% BONDS
For corporations looking to borrow, the poor economy and a Federal Reserve
policy of keeping rates as low as possible has been a big boon.
• That fact was solidified this summer when
IBM raised $1.5 billion dollars selling bonds
bearing an interest rate of just 1%.
• IBM bonds had the lowest interest rate of
the more than 3,400 securities in the
Barclay's Capital U.S. Corporate Index.
• Two years ago, it seemed all U.S. debt was
toxic. Investors were demanding high rates
for even the safest of debt offerings. The
IBM deal is just another important sign that
the economy is slowly improving.
**Data Source – Data collected from different public sources of information
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