Pru/AIA: The parallels are striking. A young, ambitious chief executive of Prudential , recently elevated from the position of finance director, launches an audacious takeover bid designed to double the UK life insurer's size.
But shareholders take fright and the Pru's share price plunges. Tidjane Thiam, the Pru's current chief executive, will be hoping that is where the similarities end.
The 2001 takeover bid for US insurer American General ended in failure. The falling Pru share price undermined the value of the all-share offer, opening the way for American International Group , then the world's largest insurer, to counterbid. The reputation of Jonathan Bloomer, the Pru chief executive, never fully recovered from the debacle.
Despite the apparent similarities, there are important differences between the Pru's American General adventure and the current $35.5 billion bid for AIA, the Asian operations of AIG. To start, the American General deal disappointed investors who thought the Pru's focus was on expanding in Asia.
This time, there are no questions about the strategic logic.
The financial structures of the two offers are also quite different. Instead of an all-share deal, the Pru is mostly offering cash for AIA, about 70 per cent of total value. AIG faces only a modest loss from the 14 per cent decline in the value of Pru shares since the deal was announced. As a result, a rival offer for AIA looks unlikely. For Pru shareholders, the share-price pain is still substantial.
But if they want to stop the AIA deal from going ahead they have only two options. One is to oppose the Pru's planned rights issue, which would amount to a vote of no confidence in Thiam. The other is to support a takeover bid for Pru, perhaps from a consortium that would break it up. But in a post-crisis world, such an offer would be hard to put together.
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On balance, Thiam has a reasonable chance of avoiding Bloomer's failure to complete.
Then he will have to do something even more difficult: prove that this transformational deal will add value for shareholders.