Shares of Action Alerts PLUS holding General Electric (GE) were climbing Monday after the company reached an agreement to combine its oil-and-gas business with Baker Hughes (BHI) and create a publicly traded company. The "new" Baker Hughes will feature $32 billion of combined annual revenue, with operations in more that 120 countries. Baker Hughes shareholders will receive a special one-time cash dividend of $17.50 per share and 37.5% of the new company, while GE will own the remaining stake. The transaction is expected to close in the middle of next year. Baker Hughes shares were up more than 6% premarket.
Level 3 Communications (LVLT) shares were up more than 8% Monday after telecom firm CenturyLink (CTL) purchased the company for $19.43 billion in a stock-and-cash deal. CenturyLink offered to pay $26.50 in cash and 1.4286 shares of its stock for each share Level 3 owners hold. The deal, which is expected to close by the end of the third quarter next year, will add 200,000 miles of fiber optic to CenturyLink's network. CenturyLink will own a slight majority of 51% of the combined company, while Level 3 shareholders will own the rest. CenturyLink shares were down more than 9% Monday.
Deutsche Bank (DB) shares were down slightly premarket following reports that U.S. and U.K. regulators have made progress into their investigation that the beleaguered German bank helped its Russian clients disguise suspicious trades. The scheme allegedly allowed Deutsche's Russian clients to purchase securities in rubles only to quickly sell them in foreign currency. The U.S. Department of Justice, New York's Department of Financial Services and the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority are all involved in the investigation, according to Reuters.
Shares of Sony (SNE) were up slightly premarket despite the electronics company cutting its profit forecast by 25% after dumping its battery business. The company finalized the sale of the business for $166.7 million while cutting its net profit forecast by 25% to ¥60 billion ($571 million) from ¥80 billion. Sony expects the deal to close by April. Increased competition from Chinese and other Asian competitors has hampered Sony's battery making business. As of the June quarter, Sony saw a nearly 11% decline in revenue and a 42% drop in operating profit across its 10 business sectors with seven of those 10 sectors seeing a decline in sales.
