How deals happen
Interactive, step-by-step walkthroughs of how these deals actually come together — click into any one below.
One company buys another outright. The most common deal type — and the building block for the rest.
Walk through itPrivate equity's signature move: cash plus a lot of borrowed money, with the debt landing on the target.
Walk through itHow you buy a company listed on a stock exchange — shareholder votes, regulators, the works.
Walk through itA private company goes public — raising cash by selling shares to investors for the first time.
Walk through itTwo similarly-sized companies combine into one — genuinely different from an acquisition, and often confused with it.
Walk through it