Nabors, which operates the largest land drilling rig fleet in the world, said it had “significantly scaled back” the pace of new rig construction in the United States as part of its efforts to cut costs. Seasonal rises in activity in Alaska and Canada “were more than offset by lower results in our Rig Services and Completion and Production Services operations as a result of lower activity and increased pricing competitiveness,” the company said.

Nabors has also cut staffing levels and begun consolidating its operating footprint, Chief Executive William Restrepo said.

Global crude prices have nearly halved since June, forcing oil and gas companies across the world to idle rigs and lay off staff.

Nabors recorded charges of about $1.2 billion in the quarter related to its pending deal with C&J Energy Services Inc and the “current industry downturn”. Around $180 million of that was due to the tax impact of restructuring the complex corporate structure of the Bermuda-based group.

As a result, the company posted a net loss of $891.1 million, or $3.08 a share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a profit of $150.6 million, or 50c a share, a year earlier.

Nabors had said in June that it would merge its well maintenance business with C&J for $2.86 billion in cash and stock. C&J last month cut the cash portion of its offer by $250 million.

Excluding one-off items, the company reported a profit from continuing operations of 33c a share, missing the average analyst estimate of 39c, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company’s shares fell 2.7% to $12.20 in after-hours trading on Monday.

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The deal, announced by the pair late on Sunday, will make the business the industry leader within the auto and industrial semiconductor markets.

The transaction is the clearest sign yet that semiconductor companies are regaining the confidence required to pursue big mergers and acquisitions at a time when their major clients, such as mobile phone manufacturers, seek to consolidate suppliers. Freescale also has its chips in consumer products such as Amazon.com’s Kindle e-reader.

The deal is the fourth semiconductor sector M&A deal this year, and the biggest of these by far.

Last month, Avago Technologies said it would buy wireless networking company Emulex Corp for more than $600 million, while MaxLinear said it would buy Entropic Communications Inc for $287 million. In January, Lattice Semiconductor said it would buy Silicon Image for $600 million.

“Financially this deal make sense. By being bigger you limit the impact of the product cycles and volatile end markets,” said RBC analyst Doug Freedman.

Freescale shareholders will receive $6.25 in cash and 0.3521 of an NXP share for each Freescale share. The purchase price puts Freescale’s value at $11.8 billion, with a total enterprise value of $16.7 billion including debt.

The companies expect the deal to close in the second half this year. NXP will fund the transaction with $1.0 billion of cash from its balance sheet, $1.0 billion of new debt and about 115 million of its shares. Freescale shareholders will own about 32% of the combined company.

Based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, NXP has operations in more than 25 countries and had revenue of $5.7 billion in 2014. Austin, Texas-based Freescale also has operations in more than 25 countries and had net sales of $4.6 billion in 2014.

NXP’s portable device and computer business is growing quickly, with its revenue up 46% year-on-year to $712 million in 2014. But its bigger automotive and chip identification businesses, which together account for about half of its revenue, grew by only 12% to 13%.

Freescale reported adjusted earnings of $1.1 billion in 2014, up from $893 million a year earlier.

Freescale went public in 2011 after being taken private in 2006 for $17.6 billion in a leveraged buyout by a group of private equity firms that included Blackstone Group LP, Carlyle Group LP, Permira Advisers LLC and TPG Capital LP. The buyout firms still own 64% of Freescale.

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Of course, you always have to wonder if the buyer or the seller got the better end of the bargain. And there's an extra reason--which comes as a tiny nugget in a lengthy divorce filing--to wonder in this case.

Let's start with some background. Both companies are run by entrepreneurs with reputations for brilliance and savvy deal making. Kinder Morgan KMI is run by Rich Kinder, who was the chief operating officer of Enron until 1996, when he lost a power play to Jeff Skilling. Kinder left Enron, taking some small pipeline assets with him, which he built into a company that is now valued at some $90 billion. This year, Forbes ranked Kinder as the 41st wealthiest man in the United States, with an estimated $10 billion fortune.

The chairman of Hiland is Harold Hamm, who is also no slouch. His main asset is the publicly traded Continental Resources CLR , which he started in the 1960s and now has huge reserves in North Dakota's Bakken formation. In 2007, Hamm, who is regarded as a fracking pioneer, took Continental public. The stock was up by as much as 600%, although with the plunge in oil prices, it has fallen 45% since late August 2014. Forbes ranked him as the 24th wealthiest person in the U.S., with an estimated fortune of $18.7 billion, although that's now dipped to about $9 billion, according to CNNMoney--and could fall further, which we'll get to in a minute. Anyway, Kinder and Hamm are now apparently neck and neck, billions-wise!

Hamm is also the chairman and owner of the privately held Hiland Partners--and that might be even better evidence of his business deal making savvy. Hiland, which was started around 1990 as a subsidiary of Continental and then spun out as a separate company, was once publicly traded. It was a so-called MLP, or master limited partnership, which is a tax-advantaged structure in which cash flows are distributed to unit holders, and only taxed at that level. Hiland, like all MLPs, had both a limited partner, which owns the assets and distributes the cash flows, and a general partner, which manages the limited partner and gets compensated based on its performance. Hiland Partners, which was the limited partner, went public in 2005 at $22.50 a unit and rose as high as $60. Hiland Holdings, the general partner, went public in September 2006 at $18.50 and increased to over $40 a unit.

When the economy collapsed and natural gas prices fell in 2009, both stocks plunged. In late 2009, Hamm personally offered to take Hiland private and ended up buying out Hiland Partners at $10 a unit and Hiland Holdings at $3.20 a unit--or about 80% to 90% less than the peak prices--for a total of around $160 million. The company ended up being owned by Hamm and his children.

At the time, a blog called the Deal Sleuth wrote that the "opportunistic squeeze out of minority shareholders" of Hiland Partners and Hiland Holdings "stands out as a particularly bad deal" for the mostly individual shareholders who owned Hiland Partners. But, as the Deal Sleuth also noted, Hamm "did not become a billionaire by buying high and selling low."

The Kinder Morgan purchase certainly seems to be additional evidence of that. The $3 billion price includes debt of about $1 billion, so the equity value is about $2 billion. In other words, on the surface, Hamm earned well over 10 times his money in about five years. Not too shabby. One of Hamm's lawyers, Glenn Devoll, points out that during these years, an additional $2 billion was invested in Hiland, $329 million of which came from the Hamm family. The rest was funded by debt, asset divestitures, and the reinvestment of cash flow. Still, not too shabby.

That's not the end of the story. On the surface, it seems that Hamm has not been quite as skillful in matters of the heart, or at least in matters related to love's aftermath. Hamm has been going through a famously messy divorce. In January, his ex wife, Sue Ann Arnall, cashed an almost $1 billion check--$974.8 million, to be precise--that she was awarded after a 10 week trial last fall. She is still arguing that she deserves more. Hamm, for his part, says he no longer has enough money to pay her.

And now for the kicker: According to documents from Hamm's divorce proceeding, the judge awarded 49.36% of Hiland to Hamm. Per the document, the value of that almost 50% stake in Hiland was $198,158,176. This implies that Hiland's total value is about $400 million. That's way less than $2 billion.

It's possible that Hiland is worth a lot more as a part of Kinder Morgan than it is as a standalone company. Kinder Morgan declined comment. Another one of Hamm's lawyers, Craig Box, says that a confidentiality order prohibits him from commenting on these numbers.

Editor’s note: At the request of Mr. Hamm’s attorney, Fortune agreed to remove the final paragraph of this article, which included language that the attorney said falsely implied deception on Mr. Hamm’s part in his divorce proceedings. Mr. Hamm’s attorney also noted that the equity value of Hiland was $1.65 billion, not $2 billion, and Mr. Hamm's equity ownership in Hiland was 63%.

The maker of Nutella spread and Ferrero Rocher chocolates has long been viewed as an appetizing target for rivals such as Mondelez International MDLZ , Nestle SA NSRGY , Mars and Hershey HSY . But given the strength of its brands, the high margins on chocolate and sluggishness of packaged food overall, the Italian business could feasibly be on the shopping list of any global food company.

“Certainly there’s more chance of a deal now than there was before; that absolutely must be true,” said Andrew Cosgrove, EY’s global lead analyst on consumer goods. “It was widely rumored that no deal would happen until this event.”

Ferrero International, a conservative and secretive 69-year-old company, has largely shied away from the dealmaking that has marked the consumer goods sector’s search for growth over the past decade.

But that could change, insiders say. Sources familiar with the company say that Ferrero had once considered a move on Cadbury but pulled back after the family patriarch rejected a push by his sons. Similarly, there were reports in 2013 that it held talks about a takeover by Nestle.

“The idea of a tie-up with Nestle could come back,” a Ferrero manager told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “Giovanni (Ferrero, the CEO) always says the company is big but does not have critical mass to really be an international player, so sooner or later he could announce an acquisition. It was the father who blocked everything.”

Other sources also said Ferrero could turn acquisitive to balance its portfolio, noting that it had considered buying United Biscuits and U.S. chocolate company Russel Stover, which ended up going to Swiss rival Lindt & Spruengli.

Apart from Western confectionery groups, Ferrero could also attract the attention of Turkey’s Ulker Biskuvi, Korea’s Lotte or private equity firms such as 3G Capital, which teamed up with Warren Buffett to buy Heinz.

Giovanni Ferrero, the son who took over sole leadership in 2011 after older brother Pietro died suddenly, would need a majority of shares to give him a stronger hand in any mooted change of course, the manager said.

A Ferrero spokesman, meanwhile, said nothing would change.

“The company is not listed and ownership is all in the family,” the spokesman said, adding that he did not know details of Michele’s will, nor how his shares would be distributed.

Some analysts have expressed doubts, too, pointing out that more than half of Ferrero’s sales come from Western Europe, where economic weakness has curbed growth, while many food companies have been looking to push into healthier products.

MainFirst Bank analysts estimate that Ferrero could fetch between EUR16 billion ($18.2 billion) and EUR20 billion, based on annual sales of EUR8 billion and the multiples in recent chocolate deals. Accounts to August 2013 report EBITDA of EUR1.3 billion.

But for all the hungry predators and investor speculation, external moves to change the status quo face a large stumbling block in the powerful emotional ties in a family business that has fostered great mutual respect between its owners and staff.

The company began in 1946 when Michele’s parents transformed an Alba pastry shop into a factory. It has more than 30,000 employees across more than 20 countries and holds almost 8% of the global chocolate market.

Yet it is still held dear in its home town of Alba, where it commands the loyalty of 3,000 employees with practices such as company buses that transport workers from remote villages and the award in 2014 of a EUR6,000 bonus spread over three years.

“We are confident Ferrero will continue on the same path,” Alba’s mayor, Maurizio Marello, told Reuters.

Others who know the family were even stronger in their assertions. “There is a less than zero chance they will sell,” said one who asked to remain anonymous.

China's top taxi-hailing apps, the Alibaba-backed Kuaidi Dache and Tencent-backed Didi Dache, said on Saturday they would merge and cease a relentless two-year war for market share in the country.

The companies promised to rollout more details after the Chinese New Year holiday ending Feb. 24. For now, they said co-CEOs will run the combined business and keep the brands independent. There was no talk of great synergies, or combining back offices. Instead, it was about cutting losses. "The fierce competition between Kuaidi and Didi is not sustainable. The merger is the result of strong desires from all the investors of both companies," Kuaidi's CEO Dexter Chauanwei Lu said in an internal memo posted on news site Netease.com.

The companies together control 99.8% of the taxi hailing app market in China, said Analysys International, and each now offers premium ride-on-demand programs to fend off competitors like Uber, which is new to the country where 170 million people use taxi-hailing apps. Based on their previous fundraising rounds, the combined companies could have a $6 billion value.

If a deal is done, "it could mark a permanent truce in the 'taxi wars' that have cost both [Alibaba and Tencent] substantial amounts of marketing and promotional support," said HSBC analysts led by Chi Tsang in Hong Kong in a note.

That was the biggest takeaway from the tie-up announced Saturday. Competition was too brutal. Last year Didi (which translates into Honk honk, get a cab) and Kuaidi (Quickly get a taxi) spent more than $400 million offering discounts to win market share in just the first half of 2014 alone, Xinhua reported. They grew so ridiculous that for a time early in the year, you could get a free ride. Beijing's starting fare is 13 RMB for the first three kilometers and Didi was offering users almost 20 RMB a ride.

But their solution, a merger, creates a monopoly with 99% market share. Presumably, Chinese regulators will look into the deal's monopolistic overtones, which are pretty obvious.

In their statement about the deal, the companies said taxi hailing is just a small part of China's total transportation market. While that may be true, few other online-to-offline market as popular in China right now. Kuadi says it has raised a total of $725 million from investors including Alibaba; Didi has raised more than $800 million from Tencent and others. Jixun Foo, managing partner at GGV Capital in Shanghai, which is an investor in Didi, said despite their size, the companies combined market share is tiny compared to total taxi hails. He estimates their combined daily rides are in the single-digit millions, compared to 50 million total daily taxi rides in China.

Even so, regulators may be interested. China's Ministry of Commerce, MOFCOM, which has merger review, can begin an investigation even if Didi and Kuadi don't have to file for consideration because their sales fall short of the mandatory filing amount of 400 million RMB ($65 million) sales each and a combined 2 billion RMB ($320 million).

If regulators scrutinize the deal, those who believe China's market is shifting toward more mature regulation may be vindicated. If it passively OKs the tie-up, regulators may appear to be at least somewhat biased after launching many high-profile cases against foreign companies past two years for monopolistic practices.

Now that bitter rivals Alibaba and Tencent have called a truce in their taxi-hailing offshoots, the attention turns to the third company in China's tech triumvirate, Baidu. Two months ago, Baidu, partnered with Uber to help bring the U.S. car service to China, investing an estimated $600 million. Uber's chauffeur model is a much different from Didi and Kuaidi's model of hailing taxis via a smartphone, but they tread on similar turf. The merger could build a stronger Uber competitor. "This really speaks to our strong confidence in the Chinese market...the market is growing, and that will ultimately benefit riders and drivers," Uber said in an emailed statement.

Another Uber-like competitor, Beijing-based Yidao Yongche, which runs a car rental service and chauffer services and also has a partnership with Baidu, sneered at the merger. "Two companies--they look exactly alike, share exactly the same products rhythm and operation methods--have merged," the company's unattributed statement said on Chinese news sites. "We might not have that many coupons and driver subsidies, but we do have cars. Large doesn't necessarily mean great."

Of course, the Kuaidi and Didi don't see it that. An internal memo from Didi Dache's CEO Wei Cheng also made it onto Chinese sites, in which Cheng says the tie-up between rivals "is a Valentine's Day's gift to the Chinese people and our great journey is just getting started from here."

It seems a stretch to say two startups giving up on cut-throat competition is a gift to the consumer. But then, Chinese regulators might be thinking that already.

The move is the latest in a dealmaking frenzy for the 86-year old Li Ka-Shing, Hutchison’s owner. Li has already spent over $30 billion by some estimates on buying assets outside China and Hong Kong, prompting speculation that he is preparing to abandon the former British colony. He has denied that speculation.

Earlier this month, Li carved out the Hong Kong property assets that have been the foundation of his fortune from the rest of his Cheung Kong conglomerate, which is more internationally focused.

In the last week alone, Li has agreed to buy Eversholt Rail Group Plc., a U.K.-based maker of railcars for $1.5 billion, and Dirx, a chain of Dutch drug stores, for an undisclosed price. He has also promised more telecoms acquisitions across Europe as the sector consolidates.

The spree of foreign acquisitions comes against a backdrop of speculation that Li, long regarded as a kind of capitalist ‘Superman’ by the Communist authorities in Beijing, has fallen out of favor with them.

In recent weeks, bloggers in government-backed mainland publications have started to refer to Li as a ‘big tiger’, a term also applied to some of the highest-profile victims of Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign such as security boss Zhou Yongkang.

Through Hutchison, Li Ka already operates the mobile and broadband provider ‘3’, and would become the biggest mobile network operator in the U.K. with over 30 million subscribers if it completes what would be its biggest overseas acquisition to date.

Telefonica SA, 02’s Spanish parent, has been looking to sell the business for some time, as its strategic position in the U.K. market comes under threat from the spread of ‘quad play’ strategies offering TV, broadband internet and fixed and mobile telephony. It also wants to free up cash for investing in markets which it considers more strategically important such as Brazil and Mexico.

The two largest players in voice telephony in the British market, BT Plc BT and Vodafone PLC VOD , are both moving in the direction of being multi-service providers. BT said last year it will buy EE, the operator of the U.K.’s first 4G network, from its French and German owners, and beefed up its TV offering substantially with a big-money bet on English soccer rights.

Vodafone chief executive Vittorio Colao, meanwhile, told investors last year it was working out “options” to develop a quad play strategy.

The U.S. company referred the $11.1 billion deal to the British authorities after it announced an $8.8 billion write-down in November 2012, with more than $5 billion put down to accounting fraud.

The British company and its executives have denied any wrongdoing.

HP, which bought Autonomy to lead a shift into software, alleged “some former members of Autonomy’s management team used accounting improprieties, misrepresentations and disclosure failures” to inflate the company’s apparent worth.

Autonomy’s former chief executive Mike Lynch, an Irish-born math whiz who led the firm when it was sold, has blamed the fall in its valuation on HP’s mismanagement.

Fallout from the purchase included the departure of two Hewlett-Packard directors, and prompted Chairman Ray Lane to give up that post. It also included criminal and civil probes by authorities in the U.S. and U.K.

HP said it passed information from an unidentified whistleblower to the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchanges Commission and the SFO.

“In respect of some aspects of the allegations, the SFO has concluded that, on the information available to it, there is insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction,” the British authority said Monday.

It said it had ceded jurisdiction over the case to U.S. authorities, whose investigation is ongoing.

Last year, HP reached a deal over litigation with shareholders over the botched acquisition, that involved shareholder attorneys agreeing to drop all claims against HP’s current and former executives, including Chief Executive Meg Whitman.

In return, HP said it would pursue claims against former Autonomy executives, including Lynch. A federal judge later rejected the proposed settlement.

In a joint statement, the two companies called the merger “a natural fit”, given that Bedminster, N.J.-based NPS is also focused on rare diseases, cures for which can offer higher margins than drugs for more mainstream conditions. The deal will allow NPS to benefit from Shire’s bigger presence in Europe as it rolls out its drugs there.

Shire, which is headquartered in Dublin for tax purposes, has offered $46 a share, a hefty 51% premium to NPS’s market value at the end of last year. It said the deal will start adding to per share earnings from next year. NPS lost $6.2 million in the first nine months of 2014. Shire is using cash, an existing $2.1 billion credit line and $850 million in new debt to pay for the deal.

NPS currently only has U.S. FDA approval for only one drug–Gattex, a treatment for Short Bowel Syndrome. SBS usually occurs in people who have had a part of their bowel removed by surgery for other complaints such as cancer, Crohn’s disease or, in some cases, obesity. It has been designated by the FDA as a rare disease Gattex is consequently eligible for the higher prices offered under regulations for ‘orphan drugs’ both in the U.S. and E.U. It is being launched in Europe under the name Revestive.

NPS also has another drug, Natpara, for trading hypoparathyroidism (HPT), under review for approval in the U.S. and Europe. HPT is a rare condition in which the parathyroid glands fail to produce enough of the parathyroid hormone, which can a range of physiological problems.

The stock market appeared to think that Shire had paid, if anything, too much for the deal. Its shares in London were up 0.2% in early trading, lagging a 0.6% rise in the broader market.

CORRECTION: the original version of this article confused the conditions “hypoparathyroidism” and “hyperparathyroidism”. The article has now been corrected.

The deal comes at a time Coach is trying to arrest a dramatic sales decline in North America, and restore an aura of luxury to a brand that has been diluted by years of discounting, an expansion of its outlet stores change, and too big a focus on logos.

Yet the struggling leather-goods maker’s shares, which have fallen by more than half since all-time highs nearly three years ago, dropped 1.2% on the news.

It’s not that Wall Street doesn’t think the deal is good. In fact, many analysts praised Coach for a deal that will give it more access to luxury retailers like Nordstrom JWN , Neiman Marcus and Saks, and give its results an immediate boost once the deal closes, expected in May.

The acquisition shows “can take some offensive, growth oriented steps while continuing to reposition the core Coach brand,” said KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Ed Yruma in a note.

But there was also concern about any potential impact on Coach’s turnaround. (In June, Coach announced it would close 20% of its North American stores to focus on 12 major markets and reduce the number of prestige- and profit-sapping profit discounts. It is also upgrading its stores, focusing on flagships.)

“Investors are currently focused on a Coach core business turnaround and capital returns so any distraction factors will be seen as adding complication and risk during a critical turnaround phase,” Stifel Nicolaus said in a note, to explain the share drop.

Here in greater details are some of those concerns:

1. The deal doesn’t do much for what Coach most urgently needs to fix: its handbag business.

The biggest reason behind Coach’s stock slide in the last three years has been a big loss of market share in the handbag wars to newer rivals Michael Kors KORS and Kate Spade KATE , among others. And women’s handbags and leather accessories generated 77% of its $4.8 billion in revenue last year. In North America, by far Coach’s largest market, comparable sales fell 24% last quarter, meaning that fixing that handbags business, more than building its footwear business, should be its top priority, analysts said.

Coach needs to “focus on recapturing the considerable market share” it lost to those rivals, especially at the $300 price level, Topeka Capital Markets analyst Dorothy Lakner said in a research notes to clients.

2. It’s potentially a distraction for Coach management during its turnaround.

The Weitzman deal is the first acquisition ever by Coach, which was spun off in 2000 by Sara Lee, as a public company. Even though the brands will be kept separate (i.e. you won’t be able to buy Stuart Weitzman shoes at Coach), and Weitzman himself and his management team will stay on, the fact remains Coach will have to put some resources into integrating the company. Stifel Nicolaus said any distraction could complicate its turnaround.

3. It doesn’t move the needle much as sales continue to slip sharply.

Stuart Weitzman is no doubt a growing brand--its revenues have grown to about $300 million a year, compared to $200 million five years ago. But that’s only 6% of company revenues, and even if it grows 10%, or $30 million a year, that won’t do much to slow down Coach’s revenue decline until, and if, its turnaround takes hold.

(Last year, Coach’s global revenue fell $275 million and it expects North American comparable sales to keep falling this fiscal year. Also, footwear currently generates less than a tenth of Coach’s overall revenue.)

What’s more, despite its luxury aura, Weitzman may not be immune to lures and dangers of the discount channel--a year ago, in earnings reports, a previous owner, Jones Group, said its profit had been hurt by a jump in sales of Weitzman shoes to off-price retailers.

4. Is this a sign its new merchandise is not catching on?

Coach has bet heavily it can regain its fashion credibility on a new line of merchandise by its well regarded creative director Stuart Vevers, who joined Coach in September 2013, replacing Reed Krakoff. His first collection for Coach, which hit stores in September, and included a lot of footwear and clothing, got rave reviews in the fashion press. But the Weitzman announcement, coming so soon after September, sparked some on Wall Street to wonder whether Vevers’ line had fallen flat. (We’ll know more about that later this month when Coach reports its second-quarter earnings.)

Still, overall, the deal did get kudos for giving Coach instant credibility in the footwear business, where it expects its sales to rise 7% a year in the next 5 years, along with access to deep expertise in shoes. Topeka’s Lakner even said the Weitzman shoes were a better match for the pricier handbags Vevers has introduced.

Haggen, an 18-store chain in the Pacific Northwest, plans to purchase 146 stores owned by Albertson’s and Safeway SWY , two giant, mid-market chains that are merging to better compete with industry leader Kroger KR . Those companies this week announced which stores they are divesting under orders from the Federal Trade Commission to assuage antitrust concerns. Haggen is buying by far the most of the 168 stories being divested, with the rest going to a handful of other companies including Supervalu and Associated Wholesale Groceries.

Haggen will transform the stores it is buying into the very kind that are posing major competitive challenges to the likes of Albertson’s, Safeway, and Kroger. As consumers continue to eschew mid-market grocers in favor of stores with more of a natural (Whole Foods) or specialty (Trader Joe’s) image, the big, traditional supermarkets have been slow to respond.

Haggen, which had been family-owned since the 1930s, sold itself in 2011 to the private-equity outfit Comvest Group, a Florida-based buyout shop. That firm immediately embarked on a rebranding campaign, renaming the stores Haggen Northwest Fresh, remodeling stores and giving them more of a local focus, and adding fresh and prepared products, many of them locally sourced. The chain plans to do the same as it expands from Washington and Oregon into Arizona, California, and Nevada, where a new, separate CEO, Bill Shaner, will head be in charge. Current CEO John Clougher, who joined the company in September, will remain head of the Washington and Oregon stores.

The terms of the sale to Comvest were not disclosed; nor were the terms of the acquisition of the new stores, which will enlarge the chain by more than 700% in terms of the number of outlets. Its employee headcount will rise from 2,000 to 10,000.

The chain of course is dwarfed by giants like Kroger and Albertson’s. Kroger, with a nearly 10% share of the grocery market, operates more than 2,600 stores, and the combined Albertson’s and Safeway will operate about 2,400. Nonetheless, chains like Haggen are expanding, while the giant supermarket outfits are hunkering down and merging as consumers’ tastes continue to change. The formerly sleepy Trader Joe’s has approximately doubled its number of stores in the past decade, and now operates 418 locations, as of last May. And it tends to be far more profitable on a per-store and per-square-foot basis than traditional grocers, and even Whole Foods. Whole Foods, meanwhile, was operating 387 stores, as of July.

Other similar chains and independents represent the strongest area of growth in the grocery business. Meanwhile, on opposite side of the mid-market grocers, Wal-Mart WMT (by far the country’s largest grocer, with 30% of the market), Costco, and other discounters and warehouse grocers are stealing away price-conscious consumers. At the same time, grocery-delivery outfits like Amazon Fresh are starting to make inroads. Shoppers are finding fewer and fewer reasons to shop at a traditional grocery store.

That partly explains why, for example, Kroger’s revenue growth has been stagnant--sales for the chain rose by 10% in 2011, 7% in 2012, and just 1.8% last year. Safeway’s revenue growth has been similarly flat or falling, as have its profits, which were about even last year after falling by about 17% in 2012.

The challenges facing traditional grocers were starkly revealed last year when Safeway decided to close all 72 stores of its Dominick’s chain in Chicago. Nobody was interested in buying the chain as a whole, so the stores had to be unloaded piecemeal. The biggest buyer was Whole Foods.

The traditional grocers are beginning to make changes, offering a more diverse product mix, more organic and locally sourced foods, and more fresh and prepared items. And in some cases, they’re buying their way in--as when Kroger acquired the upscale chain Harris-Teeter more than 200 stores a year ago.

But the challenges will remain for Kroger, Albertson’s, and all other similar chains. They are expected to lower prices to retain current customers, while also upgrading stores and improving to lure new ones. But in the volatile, tiny-margin world of retail groceries, there will be only so much they can do. The future might belong to chains like Haggen.

The Spanish oil giant agreed to pay $8 per U.S. share in the all-cash transaction, an offer that is a 56% premium to Talisman Energy’s TLM closing price on the New York Stock Exchange. The transaction’s value swells to about $13 billion when factoring in Talisman’s debt.

Talisman’s shares traded above $10 earlier this year and were at nearly $25 in 2011, though they haven’t traded at such lofty levels for quite some time. Repsol has reportedly been exploring a bid for Talisman since at least this summer, before oil prices notched their steep declines in recent months. Talisman also generated headlines a little over a year ago when it was reported that activist investor Carl Icahn had amassed a nearly 6% stake in the company, buying into the company at a time when Talisman was hit hard by weak North American natural-gas prices.

Talisman’s board unanimously approved the deal and recommended that shareholders vote in favor of the bid at a special meeting to be held in February. Repsol also made several overtures to Canada, touting plans to maintain a large management office in Calgary and promising Talisman’s Canada assets will continue to be managed locally.

Ahead of this deal, Talisman has attempted to clean up its balance sheet, reducing capital spending by 20% in 2013, reporting higher cash flow and selling off some non-core assets. The company had said it would focus on its best assets in two core regions: the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Recent results signaled a turnaround, with revenue for the first nine months of 2014 climbing 4.6% to $3.72 billion and with the bottom-line results swinging to a profit from a year-ago net loss.

FireEye FEYE said hackers comprised of a group called “FIN4″ have targeted over 100 organizations since the middle of 2013, with all of the targets either publicly traded companies or advisory firms that provide services including legal counsel and investment banking. The group appears to have deep familiarity with business deals, FireEye said, and has targeted individuals such as top executives, outside consultants and researchers, among others.

The healthcare and pharmaceutical industry has been a top target, making up 68% of the targeted organizations in the report compiled by FireEye.

“We believe FIN4 heavily targets healthcare and pharmaceutical companies as stocks in these industries can move dramatically in response to news of clinical trial results, regulatory decisions, or safety and legal issues,” the FireEye report said.

The interest in that sector also comes at a time when pharmaceutical deals are booming, with pharma companies acting as both buyers and sellers.

FireEye said it observed FIN4 access information on a wide variety of issues–including drug development, insurance reimbursement rates and pending legal cases. All of those issues can influence the price of healthcare stocks, the firm added.

Here’s how it works: FIN4 doesn’t infect systems with malware, but instead focuses on obtaining usernames and passwords to victims’ e-mail accounts, allowing them to view private e-mail correspondence. The hackers have often targeted several parties involved in a single business deal, and also have mechanisms in place to organize the data they collect and take steps to evade detection.

FireEye listed a few lines of defense, saying basic security measures could be helpful. Those tips can be found in the full report.

Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said in a statement that the government would activate the process that would see it take a stake of up to 20% in from shareholder Bouygues SA once the GE-Alstom deal was fully completed.

It still isn’t clear how Paris, which is already in trouble with the European Union for running too high a budget deficit, will pay for the stake, or what price it will pay. Bouygues has the stake on its books at a value around EUR300 million above the current market value of EUR1.73 billion.

The announcement, though expected, is a big step towards completing one of the most politically sensitive mergers in recent years in France. It is due to be rubber-stamped by Alstom shareholders on Dec. 19.

Alstom was keen to get out of its loss-making power engineering business and focus on its transportation business. But when it agreed earlier this year to sell the cash-burning business to bigger U.S. rival GE, the news sparked a two-month tug-of-war with the government.

The government intervened in the deal to preserve jobs and ensure Alstom still had a future in the strategic power sector. After tough negotiations, GE agreed to set up three 50:50 joint ventures in electricity grids, renewable energy and nuclear power. Alstom in return bought GE’s rail signalling unit to beef up its rail arm.

Unveiling its first financial results since the merger Wednesday, Alstom said it expects the rail business to grow and generate cash this year, after registering record orders in the first half of its fiscal year ending March 2015.

Revenue rose 13% on the year and new orders more than doubled from a year earlier, thanks to a EUR4 billion order for 600 suburban trains from South Africa.

Over the medium term, the engineering group said it expects sales at the “new Alstom” to grow over 5% a year like-for-like and its operating margin to gradually improve within a range of 5%-7%. Alstom excluded activities being sold to GE in its orders, sales and operating income figures.

“The project with General Electric is progressing well,” said Chief Executive Officer Patrick Kron.

The level of cash to be returned to shareholders from the deal, as well as the group’s targeted balance sheet once it refocuses on its smaller transport arm, will be communicated ahead of the shareholder meeting in December, Kron added.

Some analysts expect Alstom to put aside around EUR2 billion euros for rail acquisitions and return EUR2 billion to shareholders via a special dividend or share buyback.

As reported, Shire stands to be paid a break-up fee of about $1.64 billion if AbbVie’s shareholders follow the advice and reject the transaction.

The reversal–which had been anticipated after Chicago-based AbbVie said it was reconsidering the deal–hands a major scalp to the Treasury, which has been fighting to
make tax-avoiding acquisitions more difficult.

“The agreed-upon valuation is no longer supported as a result of the changes to the tax rules and we did not believe it was in the best interests of our stockholders to proceed,” AbbVie’s chief executive Richard Gonzalez said in a statement.

AbbVie’s move for Shire, a leader in drugs to treat attention deficit disorder and rare diseases, was announced in July amid a spate of deals in the pharmaceutical sector.

Gonzalez said at the time that the acquisition, involving the creation of a new U.S.-listed holding company with a tax domicile in Britain, was not just about tax.

But the firm said on Thursday that the changes in the U.S. tax regime “eliminated certain of the financial benefits of the transaction, most notably the ability to access current and future global cash flows in a tax-efficient manner as originally contemplated in the transaction. This fundamentally changed the implied value of Shire to AbbVie in a significant manner.”

News on Wednesday that AbbVie was cooling to the transaction hammered shares in Shire, sending them down 22% to where they were before the deal talks emerged in June, and the shares were down a further 9% by 0645 EDT.

AbbVie’s charge of heart has been a bombshell for some of the world’s top hedge funds, which have lost out heavily on the Shire stock they were holding.

AbbVie said the withdrawal of its recommendation alone would not cause a lapse in the offer for Shire and it must convene a shareholder meeting before Dec. 14 to vote on the deal.

A spate of so-called tax inversion merger deals, particularly in the healthcare sector, prompted the U.S. move to change its tax regulations, including placing a ban on loans that allow U.S. companies to access foreign cash without paying tax in the United States.

AbbVie took a swipe at the “unilateral” nature of the U.S. government’s move and complained about “the unexpected nature of the exercise of administrative authority to impact longstanding tax principles”.

AbbVie’s second thoughts on the deal have surprised Shire investors, coming just weeks after Gonzalez, in the wake of the Treasury proposals, told employees of both companies he was
“more energised than ever” about the transaction.

Aside from the tax benefits, buying Shire offered AbbVie a way to diversify its business and reduce reliance on arthritis treatment Humira, the world’s top selling medicine, whose $13
billion in annual sales accounts for more than 60% of company revenue.

The Shire episode has also fuelled doubts about whether Pfizer Inc. PFE , which abandoned a $118 billion bid for AstraZeneca AZN in May after its offer was rejected, will ever make another run at its British rival.

Tax experts say inversions are still possible but the U.S. action has reduced their appeal, suggesting they will only make sense when there is a compelling strategic fit between two
companies.

Salix Pharmaceuticals also called off its $2.7 billion merger deal with Italy’s Cosmo Pharmaceuticals this month because of the U.S. crackdown.

Qualcomm, the world’s number one mobile chipmaker, has agreed to pay 900 pence a share in cash for CSR, representing a
56.5% premium on the share price before the start of the offer period, the British company said on Wednesday.

Qualcomm’s Chief Executive Steven M. Mollenkopf said the addition of CSR’s technology leadership in Bluetooth, Bluetooth
Smart and audio processing would strengthen Qualcomm’s offer in areas like portable audio, automotive and wearable devices.

“We look forward to working with the innovative CSR team globally and further strengthening our technology presence in
Cambridge and the UK,” he said.

The British company in August rebuffed an approach from Microchip, saying the undisclosed price on offer was not enough.
The two sides had been in talks over the deal however, with a deadline imposed by British regulators for Wednesday.

CSR, short for Cambridge Silicon Radio, specialises in connectivity, with its chips used in products such as speaker
docks and Apple-owned Beats headphones.

Abbvie said in a statement overnight that it had told Shire of its intention to reconsider the recommendation it gave to shareholders to approve the bid in July and that its board will meet on Oct. 20 to consider, “among other things, the impact of the U.S. Department of
Treasury's proposed unilateral changes to the tax regulations announced on September 22, 2014, including the impact to the fundamental financial benefits of the transaction.”

Abbvie had said its tax rate would fall to 13% from 22% within a few years as a result of the merger, but had denied that the deal was mainly about cutting its tax bill.

Abbvie had had to raise its offer for the U.K.-based company four times before the latter agreed to the merger in principle in July.

But pulling out of the deal now is likely to cost the company dear. Abbvie will have to pay Shire a break-up fee of over $1.63 billion to Shire if the deal doesn’t go through.

Shire said that Abbvie hadn’t given it any precise breakdown of how the Treasury’s clampdown would affect the math behind the deal, and urged it to proceed with the bid as before.

Shire’s shares fell 25% in early trade in London back almost to the level they had been at before Abbvie first announced its interest.

In the spring of 2009, the future looked quite grim for Chrysler, which was on the brink of a bankruptcy filing. Along came an unlikely rescuer, Fiat. Could Marchionne, then the head of Fiat, broker the marriage of a lackluster Italian automaker to a failed U.S. automaker and create a successful merger?

According to the Wall Street adage, you can't tie two rocks together and expect them to float.

The results, so far, speak for themselves. FCA is making money - albeit not yet enough to be sustainable - and it's gaining market share as well as improved reviews of its performance from dealers, customers and analysts. That's what late nights, weekends and grueling effort, led by the CEO, has achieved. In an industry with few magicians, Marchionne has proven himself an automotive David Copperfield.

Richard Hilgert, a Morningstar analyst, in September issued a report on the recapitalized FCA and awarded it five out of five stars, its highest rating. As Hilgert explained, the rating didn't necessarily reflect the likelihood of FCA's eventual success and stability, but rather the exaggerated skepticism by other financial analysts. At the prices shares have been selling in comparison to their fair value, he says, the investment rating is high. Investors, however, must take into account that automaking is highly competitive, and FCA is carrying more than an average amount of debt.

"This isn't an investment for the faint-hearted," he said.

Marchionne, appearing at the opening of a new Chrysler dealership in Farmington Hills, Michigan on Friday evening, said he believes that FCA is competitive, from an investment perspective, to General Motors GM or Ford Motor F .

With 1.6 billion shares outstanding, and the stock trading just shy of its opening price of $9 a share, the market valued FCA at about $14.5 billion - compared with a market capitalization of $53 billion for Ford and $48 billion for GM.

Ah, but what is the up side of FCA? If Marchionne is able to meet his goal of growing vehicle sales worldwide to 7 million worldwide by 2018 from 4.4 million in 2013, with profit at about $6 billion - the shares presumably would be worth much more than today.

Marchionne is planning to flood the globe with Jeeps of all sizes and flavors, taking advantage of the strongest brand his company owns. He will make Ram pickups even more competitive to pickups from GM and Ford than they've been in the U.S., while protecting the company's big minivan franchise. The Alfa Romeo luxury franchise is just getting off the ground. And he probably has a few more cards hidden up his sleeve.

The FCA chief executive already has accomplished a primary goal of turning a U.S. automaker and an Italy-centric one into a global contender. But he needs capital to go further. Whether he can achieve FCA's very aggressive goals depend a great deal on whether a $9 stock looks expensive to investors - or cheap.

A deal would be a marginal but potentially lucrative addition to Amazon’s footprint in one of the world’s biggest markets at an early stage of its development. It would also allow Rocket to burnish its reputation as an incubator and seller of internet companies after a difficult start to its life as a publicly-traded company.

Rocket’s shares have lost 17% since floating in Frankfurt last month, as markets around the world have sharply revised their outlook for the world economy. The Economic Times said Rocket is looking to get $700 million for its stake.

No-one at Amazon was immediately available to comment on the report.

Amazon’s main competitor in India, the Bansal brothers’ company Flipkart, recently made a similar move by buying Myntra.com, one of Jabong’s biggest rivals in online fashion retail, back in May. Both Flipkart and Amazon have annual sales in India of a little over $1 billion.

Jabong’s sales more than tripled in 2013, but were still only $72 million. The company made a net loss of $47 million. However, India has barely begun to shop online. Internet shopping accounted for less than 1% of retail sales last year, compared to over 11% in the U.S..

The number of Indian internet users is set to pass 280 million by 2018, according to IDC research. That would make it the world’s second-largest market in terms of users after China.

But Jabong, like Amazon (and Singapore-registered Flipkart), is hampered in the Indian market by laws limiting foreign investment. As such, it is forced to operate as a wholesale company and can only act in legal partnership with locally-based retailers–something that compresses its margins.

In its IPO prospectus recently, Rocket noted that “Jabong's target margins are significantly lower” than the than those of most of the other “proven winners” in its portfolio of e-commerce sites.

India’s new Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised to make the country more attractive to foreign investment, but has so far failed to follow through on hints of lifting the restrictions on retailers.

A deal between the two would be the biggest ever in the mining industry, and would crown Glencore’s rise from a humble commodities trader to one of the world’s biggest companies with an industrial empire worth some $160 billion.

But for the moment at least, it isn’t happening. In a statement to the Sydney and London stock exchanges, Rio said that it had been contacted by Glencore at the end of July about a merger, but its board rejected the offer in early August

“The Rio Tinto board, after consultation with its financial and legal advisers, concluded unanimously that a combination was not in the best interests of Rio Tinto’s shareholders,” Rio Tinto said. “There has been no further contact between the companies on this matter.”

Later Tuesday, Glencore issued a statement of its own confirming its approach, but saying that it is “no longer actively considering any possible merger transaction with, or offer for the shares of, Rio Tinto.”

Under U.K. takeover rules, it can’t make another approach for another six months, barring a major change in circumstances. The Wall Street Journal reported a person familiar with the situation as saying Tuesday that Glencore didn’t rule out another approach.

Rio’s shares had surged over 5.2% in early trade in London Tuesday, on the notion that the world’s biggest producer of iron ore is now a target for a company with a track record of pulling off spectacular deals, notably its $46 billion acquisition of Xstrata last year. But they gave up most of their gains after the Glencore statement and were up only 2.2% by late afternoon in London.

A move for Rio has only become possible due to a dramatic slump in prices for iron ore, the basic component of steel. That’s due mainly to the fact that Rio and its biggest rival BHP Billiton have flooded the market with new supply, even as demand from China–which accounts for just under half of global steel output–has cooled.

Rio gets nearly all of its profits from iron ore, prices for which have fallen nearly 40% this year year, to their lowest since the Great Recession, while Glencore is a more diversified company with strengths in products such as coal, copper and nickel. As a result, Glencore’s share price had risen 8.1% so far this year, while Rio’s had fallen 6.7% until news of the approach broke. Such developments make it easier for Glencore to consider an all-share bid–although its market capitalization, at $72 billion, is still some way below Rio’s at $89 billion.

Any deal would need the approval of Chinese aluminum giant Chinalco ACH , which is Rio’s biggest shareholder with a stake of 9.8%. Bloomberg reported Monday that Glencore had approached Chinalco and other big Rio shareholders independently, suggesting that it might consider taking its bid hostile.

NOTE: This article has been updated to incorporate Glencore’s statement and the reaction by Rio’s share price.

Raleigh, N.C.-based Salix, which makes drugs for gastrointestinal disorders, said in July it would merge with Cosmo’s Irish subsidiary, a deal that would allow Salix to move its tax domicile abroad in a practice known as inversion.

The Obama administration took several actions last month to curb “inversion” deals that allow companies to escape high U.S. taxes by reincorporating abroad.

“The changed political environment has created more uncertainty regarding the potential benefits we expected to achieve,” Salix CEO Carolyn Logan said in a statement.

Reuters reported last month that some of the top 20 investors at Salix are threatening to vote down a proposed deal to buy a unit of Cosmo Pharmaceuticals, and are pressing Salix
to consider selling itself instead.

“The deal with Salix showed the potential of three products of ours for U.S.. The development path of the pipeline continued in the meantime, so this termination has no effect on value
creation,” said Cosmo CEO Alessandro Della Cha.

Cosmo is best known for two drugs to treat ulcerative colitis, a chronic disease that causes inflammation and sores in the lining of the large intestine.

Salix said it will pay Cosmo a break-up fee of $25 million.

Salix has been in contact with Actavis Plc about a potential sale to the larger drugmaker, even as Salix continues discussions with Allergan Inc AGN about selling itself.