The record, counted
Of 79 documented deals with a known outcome, 2 never closed, 9 were later sold off or unwound, 10 were kept but written down or lost heavily, 23 were kept and paid off as intended, and 35 were kept with mixed or unstated results. Of the 9 undone, the median time from the decision to the exit was 6 years.
- Did not close · 2 (3%)
- Sold off or unwound · 9 (11%)
- Kept, with a write-down or a large loss · 10 (13%)
- Kept, and the stated rationale paid off · 23 (29%)
- Kept, results mixed or not stated · 35 (44%)
9 more deals too recent to call, counted in none of the above.
Read this before the number
These are the deals documented well enough to verify, not every deal of this kind. That leans toward cases famous enough to be written about, which over-represents both the spectacular failures and the celebrated wins. Read the counts as what happened in these cases, not as the odds for yours.
How the cases were counted
Verified Decision Cases whose decision or choice is an acquisition or merger and whose stated capital committed is $1 billion or more. One deal counts once, however many records describe it.
Each deal is placed in one outcome from the words of its Decision Case, quoted below, and checked by an editor. A deal told in more than one record is counted once; where those records disagree, the more cautious reading counts.
| Outcome | What counts |
|---|---|
| Did not close | The deal was blocked, abandoned or terminated before it closed. |
| Sold off or unwound | After closing, the acquirer sold, spun off, split off or otherwise exited most of the acquired business. |
| Kept, with a write-down or a large loss | The acquirer kept the business, and the record reports a write-down, impairment or large loss tied to the deal. |
| Kept, and the stated rationale paid off | The acquirer kept the business and the record reports dated outcomes that bear out the reason the deal was done. |
| Kept, results mixed or not stated | The acquirer kept the business and the record reports mixed results, or none that bear on whether the deal worked. |
| Too early to call | The deal is too recent, or not yet closed, for the record to say. |
Did not close (2)
| Case | What the record says |
|---|---|
| Nvidia–Arm (2020) up to $40 billion in cash and Nvidia stock | “Nvidia abandoned the deal before any court ruled, citing 'significant regulatory challenges.'” |
| Kroger-Albertsons (2022) about $24.6 billion in total consideration | “Two years and two months later, on a single December day, two different judges in two different courtrooms killed it.” |
Sold off or unwound (9)
| Case | What the record says |
|---|---|
| Philip Morris–Kraft (1988) roughly $13.1 billion | “Altria Group completed the Kraft spin-off on March 30, 2007, distributing 0.692024 of a share of Kraft Class A common stock for each Altria share held” |
| Eastman Kodak–Sterling Drug (1988) roughly $5.1 billion | “Kodak dismantled and sold Sterling for over $7 billion, undoing the acquisition six years later.” |
| Walmart–Wertkauf (1997) roughly $1.04 billion | “The bolt-on entry took eight years and a billion-dollar loss to unwind by selling to Metro AG.” |
| PepsiCo–Tropicana (1998) $3.3 billion in cash | “announcing in August 2021 that Tropicana and its siblings would go to private-equity firm PAI Partners for roughly $3.3 billion in pre-tax proceeds, with PepsiCo retaining a 39% non-controlling stake” |
| eBay–Skype (2005) about $2.6 billion in cash and stock | “In September 2009, eBay sold 65% of Skype to Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and Canada Pension Plan for $1.9 billion, valuing Skype at $2.75 billion — less than eBay's 2005 acquisition outlay.” |
| Dow–Rohm and Haas (2008) $18.8 billion | “The specialty strategy was inverted; Dow kept the cyclical materials business and the specialty assets went to DuPont.” |
| Google–Motorola Mobility (2011) about $12.5 billion in cash | “Sold the Motorola Mobility smartphone business to Lenovo for approximately $2.91 billion, retaining the vast majority of the patents” |
| Verizon–AOL (2015) roughly $4.4 billion | “Verizon fully exited by selling the media unit, but only after a large realized loss.” |
| AT&T–Time Warner (2016) $108.7 billion | “AT&T spun off WarnerMedia and fully exited DirecTV, undoing both acquisitions.” |
Kept, with a write-down or a large loss (10)
| Case | What the record says |
|---|---|
| WPP–Young & Rubicam (2000) around $5.5 billion | “WPP recognised £3.1 billion of impairments that year, £2.8 billion of it goodwill, and its own filing states the majority related to businesses acquired as part of the 2000 Young & Rubicam deal.” |
| Vodafone–Mannesmann (2000) roughly $180 to $181 billion | “The following year it wrote off another £11,600 million - £6,700m in Germany, £4,900m in Italy - again, principally from Mannesmann.” |
| AOL–Time Warner (2000) roughly $165 billion in stock | “In the first quarter of 2002, AOL Time Warner took a $54 billion noncash pretax charge for the impairment of goodwill, substantially all of it created in the merger itself” |
| Rio Tinto–Alcan (2007) $38.1 billion in equity - roughly $44 billion including assumed debt | “By January 2013 the cumulative writedowns on that deal had reached around $30 billion, close to 80% of the purchase price.” |
| Microsoft–Nokia (2013) roughly $7.9 billion | “a $7.6 billion impairment charge, the largest write-off in the company's history, alongside another 7,800 job cuts” |
| Heinz–Kraft (2015) an additional $10 billion | “the $15.4 billion goodwill impairment the company reported in the fourth quarter of 2018 — the charge that produced a net loss of about $12.6 billion and dropped the stock more than 27% in a day” |
| AbbVie–Stemcentrx (2016) approximately $5.8 billion | “AbbVie's fourth-quarter 2018 results included an after-tax intangible asset impairment charge of $4.5 billion related to Stemcentrx” |
| Bayer–Monsanto (2018) roughly $63 billion | “On June 24, 2020, Bayer announced it would pay $10.1 billion–$10.9 billion to resolve current and future Roundup litigation, plus up to $400 million for dicamba drift litigation and approximately $820 million for PCB water litigation.” |
| Best Buy–GreatCall (2018) over $1.3 billion | “Best Buy recorded a pre-tax non-cash goodwill impairment of $475 million on the Best Buy Health reporting unit.” |
| Crocs–HeyDude (2021) about $2,316.8 million | “For full-year 2025, Crocs reported $738.1 million in asset impairments primarily from HEYDUDE trademarks and goodwill” |
Kept, and the stated rationale paid off (23)
| Case | What the record says |
|---|---|
| Sony–Columbia Pictures (1989) $4.8 billion all in - $3.4 billion for the stock, $1.4 billion in debt | “Entertainment-related revenue - gaming, music, and content - made up about 61% of total sales, according to analysis of Sony's 2024 segment results.” |
| Berkshire-GEICO (1996) $2.33 billion | “In 2024 it produced $7.8 billion of pre-tax underwriting profit — more than double 2023, and a swing from a nearly $2 billion loss in 2022.” |
| Oracle–PeopleSoft (2005) roughly $10.3 billion | “The captive-base strategy stood and the article's stated cloud growth outcomes followed from it.” |
| Google–YouTube (2006) $1.65 billion in stock | “Android and YouTube became core ad surfaces still throwing off tens of billions nearly two decades later.” |
| Siemens–UGS (2007) $3.5 billion including assumed debt | “Digital Industries saw a decline in revenue driven by the automation business, while the software business within DI posted higher revenue; net income reached a historic high of €9.0 billion.” |
| BlackRock–Barclays Global Investors (2009) $15.2 billion in cash and stock | “BlackRock had $11.6 trillion in AUM at December 31, 2024, following a record $641 billion of full-year net inflows, and full-year 2024 revenue was $20.4 billion — the first time it crossed $20 billion.” |
| Adobe–Omniture (2009) about $1.8 billion | “By 2012 Creative Cloud subscriptions tied creative tools, document workflows, and marketing analytics to a single login for the same enterprise customer” |
| SAP–SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur (2011) over $16 billion | “The acquired cloud business became SAP's growth engine and stood as reported.” |
| Facebook–Instagram (2012) approximately $1 billion in a combination of cash and shares | “By 2025 Instagram is estimated to account for roughly half of Meta's U.S. advertising revenue, per eMarketer estimates cited in reporting on the FTC trial - making the 2012 acquisition one of the most valuable in corporate history despite the price looking reckless at the time.” |
| Salesforce–Slack (2020) $2.5B ExactTarget, $2.8B Demandware, $6.5B MuleSoft, $15.7B Tableau, $27.7B Slack | “The acquisitions stood and the article states revenue reached $41.5 billion built on the bought adjacencies.” |
| Medtronic–Covidien (2015) approximately $50 billion | “Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak stated in January 2016 that the inversion resulted in $9.3 billion in savings, of which the company planned to return more than half (~$5 billion) to shareholders via buyback.” |
| Thermo Fisher–Life Technologies (2014) approximately $13.6 billion in cash equity consideration, plus assumption of approximately $1.5 billion in net debt | “The acquired consumables business runs ~36% margins and the strategy stood through FY2025.” |
| Oracle–NetSuite (2016) roughly $9.3 billion | “The bought-cloud strategy stood and produced growing cloud revenue as the legacy license business shrank.” |
| Walmart–Jet.com (2016) approximately $3 billion in cash plus $300 million in Walmart shares | “The channel turned its first profit and e-commerce grew strongly after the buy-in and store-fulfillment shift.” |
| ByteDance–Musical.ly (2017) a reported up to $1 billion | “after the Musical.ly merger, TikTok became the most-downloaded app in the US in October 2018.” |
| NextEra Energy–Gulf Power (2018) approximately $6.475 billion | “By June 2024 the development arm had 31 gigawatts of clean energy operating and a plan to add roughly 36.5 to 46.5 more by 2027 — a build program that only pencils because the regulated cash engine and the capital-recycling pump sit beside it.” |
| Novartis–AveXis (2018) $8.7 billion | “The choice stood: Zolgensma launched and declined as modeled, while the platform delivered Itvisma and pipeline acquisitions.” |
| IBM–Red Hat (2019) roughly $34 billion | “By mid-2023, Red Hat's software revenue was growing roughly 11% year-over-year and leading IBM's software segment, which rose 7.2% to $6.6 billion — with analysts noting that without Red Hat, IBM's growth would have been far more modest.” |
| Broadcom–VMware (2022) approximately $61 billion in cash and stock | “The acquisition closed and record EBITDA and cash flow followed as the extraction thesis predicted.” |
| PMI–Swedish Match (2022) roughly $16 billion | “PMI shipped 384.8 million cans of it in the US in 2023 and 581.4 million in 2024, the latter generating $1.88 billion in net revenue.” |
| ExxonMobil–Pioneer Natural Resources (2023) 545 million shares of XOM common stock with a fair value of $63 billion | “The asset thesis held and produced record output, but the contracted board seat was never filled.” |
| Walmart–Vizio (2024) $2.3 billion | “Advertising kept compounding and by FY2026 ads and membership drove a third of profit, consistent with the choice.” |
| BlackRock–Global Infrastructure Partners (2024) $3 billion in cash plus roughly 12 million BlackRock shares for GIP; about $3.2 billion for Preqin | “By the end of 2025, BlackRock's technology-services and subscription revenue hit $2.0 billion, up 24% year over year, total revenue reached $24.2 billion, and AUM had climbed to $14.0 trillion, with alternatives AUM at $423.6 billion off the back of HPS and GIP.” |
Kept, results mixed or not stated (35)
| Case | What the record says |
|---|---|
| HSBC–Midland Bank (1993) £3.9 billion, around $7.2 billion at the time | “The London domicile stood; spin-off votes failed and the 2024 reorganization kept a single legal home.” |
| Nestlé–Ralston Purina (2001) $10.3 billion | “Nestle kept the premium pet-food business, which still grows volume even as pricing power has faded.” |
| HP–Compaq (2001) roughly $25 billion | “The merger closed and stood for years but was later taken apart via the HPE spinoff, and value eroded during the process.” |
| eBay–PayPal (2002) $1.5 billion | “The acquisition closed, PayPal kept its brand, and eBay phased out its own Billpoint.” |
| AMD–ATI (2006) $5.61 billion | “In GPUs, where the missing software lived, AMD's own FY2025 filing still concedes Nvidia is the share leader and claims leadership only in semi-custom game consoles.” |
| Disney–Pixar (2006) roughly $7.4 billion | “The acquire-external-franchises strategy stood and was extended with the Marvel and Lucasfilm deals that followed.” |
| Disney–Marvel (2009) about $4.3 billion | “The acquisition stood and Disney defended the character rights through the Kirby litigation, resolved in its favor before a 2014 settlement.” |
| Berkshire Hathaway–BNSF (2009) approximately $44 billion, including $10 billion of outstanding BNSF debt | “The acquisition was finalized in February 2010 and the position completed as decided.” |
| Comcast–NBCUniversal (2011) $13.8 billion | “Comcast pruned the acquisition by spinning off the cable networks but kept broadcast, streaming, film and parks.” |
| UnitedHealth–Catamaran (2015) approximately $12.8 billion | “Optum grew into a second giant inside the firm, though the same concentration produced the 2024 breach exposure.” |
| Facebook–WhatsApp (2014) approximately $16 billion | “A completed multibillion-dollar acquisition paid mostly in issued stock is not readily undone.” |
| Dell–EMC (2015) approximately $67 billion | “The merger closed and stood, with asset sales and the later VMware spin-off used to dig out from the debt.” |
| GE–Alstom (2015) roughly $10.6 billion | “GE got the low-margin metal and was made to give away the high-margin maintenance. And it inherited more than 30,000 high-cost employees in the bargain.” |
| Activision Blizzard–King (2016) a total equity value of $5.9 billion | “King remained part of the company through the eventual $75.4B Microsoft acquisition.” |
| Marriott–Starwood (2016) roughly $13.6 billion | “Marriott kept the portfolio and remained the largest, absorbing the breach costs rather than unwinding the deal.” |
| Microsoft–LinkedIn (2016) $26.2 billion | “The deal closed and Microsoft shipped the predicted Dynamics integration afterward.” |
| Starbucks–East China JV (2017) approximately $1.4 billion in cash | “Full ownership stood while share and ticket fell as local rivals stripped the premium.” |
| Disney–21st Century Fox (2018) $71.3 billion in equity | “The deal closed and Disney kept Hulu control while divesting only the DOJ-required sports networks.” |
| Amazon–Whole Foods (2017) approximately $13.7 billion | “A ~$13.7 billion completed all-cash acquisition folded into Amazon's distribution network is not easily undone.” |
| Walmart–Flipkart (2018) approximately $16 billion | “Walmart kept the stake and spent more to consolidate ownership toward 80%, though outcomes remain unproven.” |
| Apple–Intel smartphone modem business (2019) $1 billion | “Intel Corporation confirmed it completed the sale of the majority of its smartphone modem business to Apple, a transaction valued at $1 billion as originally announced on July 25, 2019” |
| LVMH–Tiffany & Co. (2019) about $15.8 billion | “The renegotiated deal closed and stood, though group results later declined.” |
| Uber–Postmates (2020) approximately $2.65 billion | “The acquisition stood and Delivery revenue grew through 2024, though Uber remained a distant U.S. number two.” |
| Thermo Fisher–PPD (2021) $17.4 billion in cash | “The acquisition stood and services became the 52% segment, though revenue then stalled three years.” |
| Block–Afterpay (2021) roughly $13.9 billion | “The acquisition held but the integration thesis was materially modified as Afterpay moved fully into Cash App.” |
| Microsoft–Activision Blizzard (2022) $68.7 billion | “The deal closed and revenue rose, but Microsoft had to permanently surrender the cloud-streaming rights it most wanted.” |
| Mondelēz–Ricolino (2022) about $1.3 billion | “The choice stood and emerging-market organic growth followed, though currency eroded reported dollars.” |
| Amazon–One Medical (2022) $3.9 billion | “Amazon completed the $3.9 billion acquisition of One Medical on February 22, 2023, after the FTC declined to challenge the deal with an antitrust lawsuit before the close.” |
| Chevron-Renewable Energy Group (2022) $3.15 billion | “The REG acquisition completed and the core-hugging strategy was formalized in the 2023 Annual Report.” |
| Unity–ironSource (2022) approximately $4.4 billion | “Unity rejected the offer and closed the ironSource merger as chosen.” |
| Chevron–Hess (2023) $53 billion in Chevron stock | “A $60 billion completed merger making Hess a subsidiary is effectively permanent.” |
| L'Oréal–Aesop (2023) $2.525 billion | “around €3.33 billion in operating profit and global number-one in luxury beauty” |
| Home Depot–SRS Distribution (2024) roughly $18.25 billion | “The SRS deal closed and its subsidiary completed the GMS acquisition in September 2025.” |
| Cisco–Splunk (2023) roughly $28 billion in cash | “The acquisition stood and its stated ARR and EPS effects followed, while core networking kept declining.” |
| Capital One-Discover (2024) $35.3 billion | “The deal received approvals and closed, though the network migration thesis remains unproven.” |
Too early to call (9)
| Case | What the record says |
|---|---|
| JPMorgan–First Republic (2023) $10.6 billion | “JPMorgan Chase acquired substantially all First Republic Bank assets from the FDIC on May 1, 2023” |
| Pfizer–Seagen (2023) approximately $43 billion | “The deal closed as chosen, though its earnings payoff was guided to be years away.” |
| Home Depot-SRS Distribution (2024) an estimated $18.25 billion in enterprise value | “On March 28, 2024, Home Depot announced a definitive agreement to acquire SRS Distribution Inc.” |
| Siemens–Altair (2024) enterprise value of approximately $10 billion | “The Altair acquisition closed on March 26, 2025 at an enterprise value of approximately USD $10 billion; Altair became a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens; shares ceased trading on NASDAQ.” |
| Rio Tinto–Arcadium Lithium (2025) about $6.7 billion | “The acquisition closed and Rio Tinto Lithium was established, though the price recovery underlying the thesis had not yet materialized.” |
| Boeing–Spirit AeroSystems (2024) roughly $4.7 billion in equity — about $8.3 billion counting Spirit's net debt | “Spirit became wholly owned by Boeing on December 8, 2025.” |
| ServiceNow–Moveworks (2025) $2.85 billion in cash and stock | “ServiceNow agreed to acquire Moveworks for $2.85 billion in a combination of cash and stock, announced March 10, 2025; the deal was structured as a merger agreement dated March 9, 2025.” |
| Stripe-PayPal (2026) about $53 billion | “The offer was unsolicited and had not been agreed or closed at publication, with no dated outcome stated.” |
| Fox–Roku (2026) roughly $22 billion enterprise value | “The article states the deal is expected to close later and reports no dated post-fork outcome.” |