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Amazon Acquisition of Zappos

In: Business and Management

Submitted By flyover87
Words 5104
Pages 21
| Mergers & Acquisitions | Acquisition Case Study: Amazon’s acquisition of Zappos, November 2009 | | Stephen Greening | 26/04/2014 |

WORD COUNT: 2489
Contents
Executive Summary 3 Introduction 4 Amazon Overview 4 Amazon’s Previous Acquisitions 5 Zappos Overview 6 Acquisition of Zappos 9 Strategy 11 Why Amazon wanted to acquire Zappos 11 Regulation 14 Valuation 15 Comparable Company Analysis (Comps) 15 Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) Analysis 16 Precedent Transactions Analysis 16 Historical Stock Price & Next Twelve Months (NTM) Analysis 17 Financing 19 Defence Tactics 21 Implementation 23 Risk 25 Conclusion 26 References 27 Books 27 eBooks 27 Journals 27 Online Images 27 Presentation 28 Reports 28 Websites 28

Executive Summary
In November 2009, ‘Amazon, Inc.’ (Amazon) completed the acquisition of ‘Zappos.com, Inc.’ (Zappos) in a deal worth around $1.2 billion. Amazon announced in July 2009, that it had reached a deal to acquire Zappos in a deal worth $847 million. The deal was financed by 10 million shares of Amazon common stock (worth around $807 million) and $40 million of Cash and Restricted Stock units on the balance sheet.
Amazon is an American international electronic commerce (e-commerce) company, while Zappos is an online shoe and clothing shop. The acquisition of Zappos by Amazon was a friendly takeover; the public announcement, negotiation and acceptance of the acquisition deal are the characteristics of a friendly takeover. The deal was a horizontal merger, with Amazon acquiring Zappos to offset its failed online shoe retail market entry Endless.com.
The rationale for the deal was outlined as follows: * Amazon believed there was a tremendous opportunity to grow the Zappos brand. * Zappos was interesting in

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