经济学人下载:一周要闻 辉瑞世纪大并购愿望恐落空 合并计划胎死腹中

Business this week
本周经济要闻

Pfizer called off its $160 billion merger with Allergan after the US Treasury proposed new rules that would severely curtail the benefits of “inversion” takeovers (where an American company buys a foreign one in order to reduce its corporate-tax bill). Allergan is listed in New York but has its corporate headquarters in lower-taxed Ireland, which is where Pfizer would have based the newly combined company. Such deals have become politically toxic in America, but the White House denied that the new regulations were intended specifically to scupper the Pfizer-Allergan deal.
继美国财政部颁布新规，将严厉打击“税收倒置”收购（即美国企业收购外国企业到达减税目的），辉瑞制药（Pfizer）已中止与艾尔建（Allergan）1600亿的并购交易。艾尔建的注册地在纽约，但其总部却位于税率更低的爱尔兰，原本辉瑞制药打算将合并后的公司总部也设在爱尔兰。如今，凡涉及类似倒置收购的并购交易在美国都已经不可行了，不过白宫方面否认新规有针对辉瑞-艾尔建这起并购交易的意思。

America's Justice Department filed a lawsuit to stop the $25 billion merger of Halliburton and Baker Hughes, the world's second- and third-largest oilfield-services companies, citing antitrust concerns. The merger was announced in November 2014 but opposed by some big oil companies. They worried that diminished competition in oil services would put a further squeeze on profits already hit by the fall in oil prices.
美国司法部提起反垄断诉讼，意图阻止油田服务商哈里伯顿（Halliburton）以250亿美元收购贝克休斯（Baker Hughes）（哈里伯顿和贝克休斯分别是世界第二，第三大油田服务公司）。两公司于2014年11月宣布合并，当时遭到一些大型石油公司的反对。它们担心石油服务行业竞争压力的削弱会进一步挤压原本就因油价下跌而减少的利润空间。

The share prices of big French telecoms companies plunged following the collapse of a proposed