Quiet Week

Last week was a busy week for M&A, but this week is very quiet. Well, there is a small bit of news regarding 3Com (Ticker: COMS). Today, the EU Competition approved HP’s (Ticker: HWP) purchase of 3Com, which was expected. Everyone is of course waiting for the ok from China’s Ministry of Commerce. This is expected by the end of April.

On my front, no trades this week at all, which was not by choice. I’ve decided to close my full service account with Merrill Lynch and consolidate it with my other stuff at TD Ameritrade. My account is currently frozen during the transfer process. Since I make all of my decisions, it didn’t make sense to pay the additional fees associated with a full service. The broker was actually pretty good, he didn’t try to sell me anything and in fact he was able to get me a full IPO allotment of VISA (Ticker: V). I thanked him for that by doing a bit of biz with him, but now it's time to move on.

So I still have small risk arb positions in IMS Health (Ticker: RX) (should close any day now), 3Com (end of April close?), Hardinge (Ticker: HDNG) (hostile take over play – looking at a higher bid), Air Gas (Ticker: ARG) (another very hostile take over play) and Archon ST (Ticker: STST) (selling itself to the highest bidder).