Massive pharma news to start the day, with AbbVie announcing that it’s reached a deal to buy Allergan for roughly $63 billion. The tie-up is seen as giving AbbVie a “dominant position in the $8 billion-plus market for Botox and other beauty drugs” is it “braces for the end of patent protection for the world’s top-selling drug, Humira” – WSJ and Bloomberg
The S&P 500 hit an all-time high last week, and the US economy “is on track to reach its longest expansion in history.” Which means—say it with me—time to attack the Fed! – NYTimes and WSJ and MarketWatch
We’re always keeping a careful eye on the return of once-popular bonds that blew up during the financial crisis. This time around, we’re talking home-equity line-of-credit-backed offerings, which Cerberus Capital is now offering with fresh AAA ratings from all four major ratings agencies – WSJ
And if we need a reminder about why such tracking is important, we need merely look to New York, where UBS and the DOJ are [still] battling it out over alleged fraud in the bank’s “precrisis sales of residential mortgage-backed securities” – Law360
Even while much-vaunted Lyft and Uber debuts fizzled, 2019’s been a banner year for IPOs, and the Times has the numbers to back that up, with Slack’s unconventional direct offering adding to the equation just last week – NYTimes
Next in the offing? Perhaps a $2.5 billion move to go public from PE-backed natural gas pipeline owner Blue Race Midstream – Bloomberg
Turns out the DOJ won’t exactly be going it alone should it launch an antitrust case against Google. A mixed bag of competitors and outright enemies is proving more than willing to pitch in along the way – WSJ
The harsh spotlight reserved for Carlos Ghosn over the past 7 months has gradually shifted to Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa—a once-loyal Ghosn lieutenant who “has relentlessly attacked his former mentor’s character and blamed him for myriad woes at Nissan.” Though Saikawa won reappointment as chief in today’s annual board meeting, the vote came with plenty of drama (for him and partner Renault) – NYTimes and WSJ
Former Deutsche Bank exec Andreas Hauschild has denied playing any role among a group of “bankers that gamed the financial system in a five-year” Euribor rate rigging plot. Hauschild is currently on trial in London for conspiring with others to rig the benchmark rate – Law360
An Oklahoma state judge has given the green light to the state’s $85 million settlement with Teva Pharmaceuticals over the company’s role in the state’s opioid crisis – MarketWatch
Japan’s largest bank—MUFG—will pay $33 million to resolve claims from the NY Dep’t of Financial Services that it “flaunted anti-money laundering requirements while operating in the state”—the latest in an increasing number of cases focusing on banks’ AML failings – Law360
As an unabashed Midwesterner, I love me some Lands’ End almost as much as my wife hates it. So you better believe I’m all in on this Marketplace sit-down with company CEO Jerome Griffith – Marketplace
In case the Women’s World Cup isn’t floating your boat (and how could that be?), take comfort in knowing that we’ve finally got a location for the 2026 winter games—with Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo to share hosting duties in northern Italy – WSJ
