One by one, the records fall

I have been repeating, ad nauseam some might say, that we will see a few records falling before this M&A boom is over. Well, with today's news of an impending deal for Freescale, three records that do matter have fallen in as many months, thus placing this boom confidently higher than the earlier boom.

• HCA (HCA): the largest leveraged buyout, LBO, ever, beating the RJR record, though if you account for inflation the earlier record still stands (just give it some time!).
  
• Kinder Morgan (KMI): the largest mangement-led buyout, MBO, ever.
  
• Freescale Semiconductor(FSL): News out today indicated that two different private equity groups are bidding. The deal would be worth atleast $16 billion, making it the largest tech buyout ever, and by a huge margin. I have a few shares that I received when it was spun off from Motorola, but I won't be marking it as a hit. The earlier record is held by Sungard Data Systems, another early hit for me.

I will make yet another, foolishly bold, forecast - we will see all these three records falling again, by the end of this year, with just over 3 months to go! And again, over the next year. And then again, shall I say ad nauseam!