It was a Monday of dealmaking, with insurance giant AIG announcing a $5.56 billion agreement to acquire Bermuda-based Validus Holdings [WSJ and Bloomberg]; biotech biggie Celgene Corp. agreeing to buy Juno Therapeutics for roughly $9 billion in a move to expand its blood-cancer drugs [WSJ and Bloomberg]; Bacardi paying the “premium price” of $5.1 billion to acquire Patron Tequila [WSJ and Bloomberg]; Sanofi snapping up hemophilia drugmaker Bioverativ for more than $11.5 billion [WSJ and NYTimes]; and luxury firm Richemont offering $3.3 billion to bring Yoox Net-A-Porter—“one of the world’s most disruptive e-commerce companies”—into its stable – WSJ and NYTimes
Tuesday, however, is proving to be a different beast altogether, eh Rupert? – WSJ and NYTimes
An update on the departure of former Congressman Harold Ford from Morgan Stanley – NYTimes and Bloomberg
Daniel Loeb and his Third Point fund is pushing Nestle—despite its recent sale of its US confectionary business to Italy’s Ferrero for $2.8 billion last week—to make further changes, including dropping its stake in cosmetics giant L’Oreal – WSJ
Netflix had a monster quarter – MarketWatch and Bloomberg
NY state judge Marcy Friedman has refused DZ Bank’s attempt to conduct a bellwether trial in its fraud suit against Morgan Stanley over toxic RMBS, suggesting that that the plaintiff-selected cases “wouldn’t resolve things any more efficiently” – Law360
White Collar Watch offers up something of an existential question for us on the issue of financial transparency: with new AML and foreign corruption regs apparently coming down the pike, who should bear the financial burden for the new rules—the government or banks? – NYTimes
The Supreme Court has refused to take up Article III standing issues through yet another Spokeo petition that asked the Court to clarifying what it dubbed “widespread confusion” over “what types of intangible injuries can establish standing” – Law360
NY federal prosecutors have accused former KPMG employees and a government accountant of plotting to help the firm “get a leg up in a regulatory review of its auditing work” – NYTimes and WSJ and Law360
We’re sure to be hearing plenty more from the global and financial elite as they gather in Davos, Switzerland for this year’s World Economic Forum. Which is all fine and good, but let’s at least start by talking about the big story there: its weather – NYTimes
