Mergers, Joint Ventures, and a Few Breakups Ruled the Markets This Week: Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.A) and More

The last item has yet to be officially announced, but the possible joint venture between Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)‘s Android operating system grabbed my attention. My Fool colleague Rick Munarriz even marked it as one of his Top 5 Smartest Stock Moves of the Week. A few technology blogs reported this week that the struggling personal-computer manufacturer was gearing up to release a high-end tablet that runs on the Android operating system and that a smartphone may be soon to follow. Anything Hewlett-Packard can do to generate earnings growth will be seen as a positive thing among both shareholders and analysts.

Breakups
The most noteworthy breakup this week was the announcement that Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA) and General Electric Company (NYSE:GE) agreed to a deal in which Comcast will purchase the outstanding 49% of NBCUniversal, which General Electric owned, for $16.7 billion. GE sold the first 51% of NBCUniversal to Comcast in 2009 for $13.8 billion and will now own the rest of the unit. This is good for both companies, as NBC fits well with Comcast’s other businesses while it clearly was not GE’s bread and butter. While both organizations will be better off in the long term because of this deal, Comcast may come out ahead of GE because of the great synergies Comcast can now experience.

Finally, one true breakup announced early in the week was that JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) and a number of top managers were parting ways. As the company’s equity-units revenues fell this past year, so did bonuses. A number of top traders left because of shrinking pay, while the company cut three managing directors and 18 executive directors because of the lower revenue experienced this year.

The article Mergers, Joint Ventures, and a Few Breakups Ruled the Markets This Week originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Matt Thalman.

Fool contributor Matt Thalman owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase. Follow Matt on Twitter: @mthalman5513. The Motley Fool recommends American Express and Berkshire Hathaway and owns shares of Berkshire Hathaway, General Electric, and JPMorgan Chase.

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