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MIDDLE-SIZED, NOT MEDIOCRE

Foreign banks in Taiwan are taking off their rose-tinted glasses. They have discovered, a bit late in the day, that high economic growth does not always mean high profits.

HOW TO IMPRESS A JAPANESE FIRM

LEVERAGED FUNDING As part of the total package for its $4.35 billion acquisition of Sperry Corp, the Burroughs Corp plans to raise $250 million of capital via an issue of money market preferred stock.

UNHITCH THE TRACTOR, SUNSHINE

JAPAN PREPARES FOR A TAKEOVER SPLURGE Contrary to received wisdom, mergers and acquisitions have long been a feature of the Japanese business scene. The local business landscape is littered with the debris of takeover coups -- some successful, others not -- by predatory Japanese companies. Predictably, no foreign company has so far succeeded in taking over a listed Japanese corporation. The recent bid by the Trafalgar Holdings and Glen International consortium to acquire Minebea -- an aggressive Japanese ball bearing and electronics manufacturer -- illustrates graphically some of the barriers which must be overcome to succeed in such a venture.

US MEGAMERGERS ON THE WANE When the management of Alamito corp announced its decision to take the company private last autumn via a leveraged buyout (LBO) at $125 a share, few could have anticipated the bidding war that would ensue. At one point, remembered Daniel Good, head of the mergers and acquisitions department at EF Hutton, Alamito's investment bank, "we literally received a bid an hour and in totoal there were 14 separate bids". Eventually, the competition narrowed to four bidders and the victor was Osceola Energy Inc, which agreed to pay $165 a share, a whopping premium over management's original price.

TO FOCUS IS TO SUCCEED Through the spin-off of the Henley Group this past spring, said Gene Barron, manager of corporate finance at Allied Signal Corp, his company succeeded in divesting all its unwanted businesses "in one fell swoop" .Allied Signal retained a 30% interest in the group -- a hodgepodge of 35 different businesses -- whiel shareholders received the remaining 70% of the new company in the form of one Henley share for every four Allied shares. By thus removing all the businesses from its balance sheet at once rather than shopping each individually, noted Barron, Allied Signal achieved the same result with less time and effort while bringing additional value to shareholders.

SPACE RACE FOR ALBERT FRERE

FOREIGN BANKS AND SECURITIES HOUSES IN SPAIN

Beware the dirty diggers | Canada grapples on the border | En France on va tout privatiser | Japan prepares for a takeover splurge | Leveraged funding | The city spins with merger mania | The thriving LBO | To focus is to succeed | U.S. megamergers on the wane

SPRING IS BETTER LATE THAN NEVER