The truly unfortunate: Bloomberg says Wall Street banks including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are missing out on millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions, in fees after Canada’s Alimentation Couche-Tard abandoned its bid to buy Seven & i Holdings, the Japanese operator of 7-Eleven convenience stores. Goldman advised Couche-Tard on the US$46 billion offer, while Morgan Stanley was Seven & i’s adviser.
The bright side: Couche-Tard says it’s walking away because Seven & i refused meaningful engagement. Desjardins analyst Chris Li says the withdrawal is not a big surprise. He thinks this could lift Alimentation shares because it removes the prospect of an enormous stock issue and brings the hope of a resumption of share buybacks.
Sour feeling: Shares in corn processor Archer-Daniels-Midland, a producer of high fructose syrup, dropped five per cent in premarket trading. That’s after U.S. President Donald Trump said Coca-Cola has agreed to use “real cane sugar” in Coke soda in the U.S. Coke itself was guarded, saying “more details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon.” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Alvin Tai says, “using sugar would displace high-fructose corn syrup, creating an oversupply of corn and hurting ADM’s corn-processing business.”
Drying out: Finally, Debra Crew, CEO of global booze giant Diageo, has quit after two years. The Wall Street Journal says the seller of Johnnie Walker whisky, Guinness and Smirnoff vodkas has struggled with a drop in alcohol consumption and tariff uncertainty. The publisher says consumers’ thirst for Diageo’s high-end libations slowed in the U.S. and other parts of the world “after a pandemic-era booze boom came to an end.