Welcome to the Voting issue of M&A Daily
General Electric
General Electric (NYSE:GE) could lose target votes in both of its outstanding acquisitions. Its offer for Arcam (OTCPK:AMAVF) appears unlikely to secure the requisite 90% acceptance while its offer for SLM (OTC:SLGRF) is not likely to get the needed 75%. What will GE do? It could walk away or bump each offer by 10-15% to secure approvals. Given its strategic rationale, the latter is more likely.
Presidential Election
Speaking of grim upcoming elections, Hillary Clinton has suffered from a tough week. PredictIt has her down to a 65% chance of winning in the latest prediction market (for a real arbitrage opportunity, give them promo code STW50 to get your first $50 matched; as you probably have figured out, I love sign-up bonuses). She is down to a 59.5% chance of winning in the FiveThirtyEight 2016 Election Forecast. Her lead has dwindled to 0.9% in the RealClearPolitics two-way average and 0.7% in the four-way average. She remains the favorite, but it is an increasingly close call.
