The strategic push to wheel and deal comes at a time when corporations are flush with cash. As the economy boomed in recent years, most companies paid off loans, so debt-to-equity ratios haven't been this low since the 1970s.
With balance sheets strong and the business outlook rosy, it has never been easier for large companies to borrow from banks, or sell bonds to finance purchases. And even with the recent dip, stock market values support selling shares to finance takeovers.
full story: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060531.RTAKEOVER31/TPStory/Business
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on June 1, 2006]
Note: http://www.theglobeandm...

This story is a clear example of the idology based, forced collectivization of the world's economy into the hands of oligopolies and cartels. Actions, old time economists and politicians warned and made laws against.
Now they're encouraging it and rub their hands with glee, as they do here in BC and across Canada, when their local economies are taken over and destroyed by multinational, carpetbagger crooks. The idiots call this "increased competitiveness".
So, let's hear from our brave "free enterpriser", "individualist", trolls expounding the benefits of the forced collectivization of the economy into politically correct hands and compare their words to those of Lenin and Stalin, who advocated and forced on the same theory at the cost of millions of lives, as it is happening now.
So, kiddies, who are the "lefties"? The collectivizers, or those who would like to see home made democratic decision making powers in the hands of locally owned and controlled private as opposed to fraudulent "free..." enterprise.
Ed Deak.