footnoted has the Hottest Hand (foot?)

“In 2010, we identified that there were pre-merger signals at more than 40 companies that later announced deals, based on information buried in their SEC filings.  Finding these subtle signals isn’t as easy at it sounds.”

Not for nothing, but Michelle Leder is a blogging rock star and whatever Morningstar paid for her site footnoted, they got a bargain.  And she sat through my raucous remarks at a roast in Chicago a few months ago without batting an eyelash; anyone who can tolerate me and a microphone for ten minutes is all good in my book.

Anyway, footnoted put out a list of ten takeover targets for 2011 like 3 weeks ago and two of them (TWO!) have already been snapped up.  It’s February 9th, are you kidding me?

Awesome.

Less than a month ago, we included Pride International (PDE) on our list of Top 10 M&A prospects for 2011, when Pride was trading at about $34 a share. This morning, Pride announced that it had agreed to be acquired by Ensco PLC (ESV) in a deal valued at $41.60 a share. It’s the second company on our Top 10 M&A list to announce that it’s being acquired — the first was Smurfit-Stone Container (SSCC) on January 24, also for a healthy premium.

There are still 8 potential targets left in the original list that haven’t yet been acquired.  They are as follows:

• Abiomed ($ABMD)
  
• Copano Energy ($CPNO)
  
• Infinera ($INFN)
  
• Lawson Software ($LWSN)
  
• Leap Wireless ($LEAP)
  
• LKQ Corp. ($LKQX)
  
• Select Medical Holdings ($SEM)
  
• Stage Stores ($SSI)

For the complete buyout rational on each of these names, download the PDF below.

Source:

Our Top Takeover Candidates for 2011 (footnoted pro)