Notable Mergers and Acquisitions of the Day 7/7 (YHOO/MSFT, MER/BLK, GE, KWK)

July 7, 2008 9:32 AM EDT

StreetInsider.com Notable Mergers and Acquisitions of the Day:

• Carl Icahn issued an open letter to Yahoo!'s (Nasdaq: YHOO) Board, read it here. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) has now responded to this letter; read the response here.
  
  
• The Wall Street Journal is the reporting that Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER) continues to move closer to making deals to sell its stakes in Bloomberg and BlackRock (NYSE: BLK). Selling part or all of either stake would raise much-needed cash as the company is expected to report up to $6 billion in write-downs during Q2.
  
  The article says that Merrill could raise $5 billion for its 20% stake in Bloomberg and more than $12 billion from its 49% interest in BlackRock. According to people familiar with the matter, Merrill would likely only sell a part of its BlackRock stake in an attempt to maintain a strategic alliance if a deal is done.
  
  
• NBC Universal (NYSE: GE), Bain Capital and The Blackstone Group (NYSE: BX) signed a definitive agreement to acquire The Weather Channel properties from Landmark Communications.
  
  Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
  
  The transaction includes The Weather Channel Networks, the third-most-distributed cable network, seen in more than 97% of cable television homes in the U.S.; The Weather Channel Interactive, which includes weather.com, the nation's leading weather website, with nearly 40 million unique visitors per month, and a leading mobile business; and Weather Services International, a global leader in weather forecasting, with more than 5,500 clients worldwide.
  
  
• Quicksilver Resources Inc. (NYSE: KWK) has entered into purchase and sale agreements with various private parties including Chief Resources LLC, Hillwood Oil & Gas, L.P. and Collins and Young, L.L.C. to acquire producing, leasehold, royalty and midstream assets, associated with the Barnett Shale formation in northern Tarrant and southern Denton counties of Texas, for $1.307 billion. The acquired properties currently have net production of approximately 45 million cubic feet (MMcf) per day.
  
  Quicksilver estimates that these properties contain more than one trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas resources net to the company including approximately 350 billion cubic feet (Bcf) of proved reserves, of which approximately 40% are proved developed, and more than 650 Bcf of additional resource potential on 13,000 net acres.

To see all the Mergers & Acquisitions for today in real-time go to http://www.streetinsider.com/Mergers+and+Acquisitions

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• Carl Icahn
• Merrill Lynch
• Bain Capital

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