The deal tape

How to use a set like this

Cut to the narrowest set that still holds eight or ten deals, then quote the range rather than the median. An interviewer who asks where software takes out will accept a spread and press on a single number, because the single number implies a precision the set does not have. Say which deals sit at each end and why: the top of a range is usually a contested auction or a strategic buyer with synergies, the bottom a controlling holder buying in the minority.

Premiums move with the reference price, not only with the deal. A bidder quotes the period that flatters the offer, so read the premium to the unaffected close beside the premium to the thirty-day average and notice when they diverge.

What each column means

Enterprise value.

Offer per share times shares outstanding, plus net debt at the last balance sheet before the merger agreement. It is blank where either piece was missing, and those rows are in the “not computed” band rather than in a size they never earned.

Premium.

The offer against the unaffected price, which is the last close before the deal became known. Where the filing states a premium to the thirty-day volume-weighted average, that is shown next to it.

Deal type.

A take-private is bought by an affiliate, which is what triggers the Schedule 13E-3 and the fuller disclosure that comes with it. A public merger is an arm’s-length buyer, disclosed through the merger proxy.

In doubt.

A cross-check the reading could not satisfy: an equity value far from the fee-table figure, a multiple outside any sane band, or consideration that is partly stock so the per-share cash figure is not the price. The row stays visible, and it is set aside only for the measures the doubt reaches. A cash-and-stock deal cannot price a multiple and still states a premium the filing itself computed, so it counts in one and not the other.