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Megadeals Roar Back: How $48.7B, $10.55B, $9.5B and $7B Transactions Are Redrawing the Corporate Map

Megadeals are back, and they are reshaping everything from diapers to data centers. Kimberly‑Clark’s $48.7 billion pact for Kenvue, Coeur’s $7 billion all‑stock grab for New Gold, Eaton’s $9.5 billion move for Boyd’s thermal unit, Vertiv’s $1 billion PurgeRite buy, and Boeing’s $10.55 billion Jeppesen sale point to boards racing to scale, raise cash, and refocus. The short term brings cost synergies and portfolio clean‑ups. The long term brings tighter supply chains for AI, stronger brand portfolios in consumer health, and a new senior precious‑metals player in North America. The U.S. sets the pace, Europe weighs regulatory angles, and Canada gains a mining champion. Compared with recent years, financing is flowing again while AI capex accelerates. This matters now because 2026 integration plans, capital spending, and antitrust reviews start today.

The deals that define the moment

Boards are committing real money to reshape strategy:

Kimberly‑Clark (NYSE:KMB) agreed to acquire Kenvue (NYSE:KVUE) for $48.7 billion in cash and stock, creating a consumer health giant with roughly $32 billion in annual revenue. At closing, KMB holders would own about 54% and KVUE holders 46%, with brands spanning Huggies, Kleenex, Tylenol and Neutrogena. Former parent Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) exits with its 2023 spinoff now in a new home.
Coeur Mining (NYSE:CDE) will acquire New Gold (NYSEAMERICAN:NGD) in an all‑stock deal valued at about $7 billion, forming an all‑North‑American precious‑metals producer with more than 1,700 Canada‑based employees and 450 contractors.
Eaton (NYSE:ETN) will buy Boyd Corporation’s thermal business for $9.5 billion to scale its data‑center segment, explicitly leaning into cooling and power needs tied to AI demand.
Vertiv (NYSE:VRT) plans to acquire PurgeRite for about $1 billion, plus up to $250 million of contingent consideration, expanding specialized liquid‑cooling services for mission‑critical facilities.
Boeing (NYSE:BA) completed the $10.55 billion sale of its Jeppesen, ForeFlight, AerData and OzRunways assets to Thoma Bravo, spinning them out as Jeppesen ForeFlight, led by CEO Brad Surak.

Market reactions underscored the trade‑offs: KVUE shares jumped nearly 19% on deal day, while KMB slumped roughly 12% to 14%, reflecting integration risk and leverage concerns alongside sizable synergy potential.

Consumer health scale meets controversy

Kimberly‑Clark says the Kenvue tie‑up delivers breadth and cash‑flow heft. It also inherits legal and reputational complexity. KVUE has faced scrutiny around Tylenol, including a sales hit after public remarks linking acetaminophen in pregnancy to autism, and litigation headlines in Texas. Still, the combined portfolio—Tylenol, Band‑Aid, Aveeno with Huggies, Kleenex, Cottonelle—offers pricing power and shelf dominance across North America and Europe.

Short term, expect:

Integration and supply chain harmonization across personal care and OTC categories.
Cost synergies and SKU rationalization to defend margins in a slow‑growth consumer backdrop.
Regulatory review on select overlaps, though the brands are largely complementary.

Long term, the play is brand depth plus innovation spend to outpace peers like Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG). Activist pressure was evident; D.E. Shaw, a major KVUE holder, now exits closer to breakeven thanks to the premium. That is a reminder: corporate actions are also capital‑market actions.

Precious metals consolidation, Canadian center of gravity

Coeur’s all‑stock purchase of New Gold consolidates assets into a cross‑border operator with scale to fund mine plans and optimize logistics. For Canada, this creates a larger, domestically anchored precious‑metals employer with project continuity. For the U.S., it extends optionality on North American gold and silver supply at a time when geopolitical risk is recasting critical materials strategies.

Compared with prior cycles, this combination is about operations and balance‑sheet flexibility rather than a bet on a single commodity spike. In the near term, integration and permitting discipline will matter more than macro price calls.

AI’s heat problem is driving real M&A

Two transactions capture the industrial heartbeat of AI: Eaton’s $9.5 billion agreement for Boyd’s thermal unit and Vertiv’s $1 billion PurgeRite deal. Both aim squarely at liquid cooling and fluid‑management services that hyperscalers now require as rack densities and GPU clusters push thermals higher.

The backdrop is a capacity race. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) signed a $9.7 billion, five‑year AI cloud capacity deal with IREN; Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) struck a seven‑year, $38 billion agreement to supply OpenAI with AWS infrastructure that includes access to hundreds of thousands of NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPUs. Verizon (NYSE:VZ) is building new high‑capacity fiber routes for AWS. This is not theoretical demand; it is contracted demand. That is why industrial buyers are paying up for cooling expertise, field services, and time‑to‑deploy advantages.

Short term, expect higher backlogs and cross‑selling between equipment and services. Long term, the winners will be those who can standardize liquid‑cooling deployment at scale, reduce downtime risks, and align with sustainability mandates as power scarcity intensifies in the U.S. and Europe.

Boeing’s carve‑out: focus and funds

Boeing’s sale of Jeppesen ForeFlight to Thoma Bravo for $10.55 billion gives the aerospace giant cash, simplification, and a cleaner line of sight on core commercial and defense programs. The new Jeppesen ForeFlight launches as a standalone aviation‑software company, signaling private equity’s appetite for mission‑critical digital tools with sticky enterprise customers.

Analysts took note; Boeing received a Buy upgrade even as investors track delivery cadence and regulatory milestones. For Europe and Asia carriers, a focused software vendor could speed product updates and integrations; for Boeing, the carve‑out reduces complexity and supports balance‑sheet priorities.

Why it matters now

We are seeing three forces converge:

AI infrastructure needs are accelerating industrial consolidation around thermal, power, and field services.
Consumer health is bulking up to defend shelf space, pricing power, and innovation pipelines.
Miners are pairing up to stabilize capital plans and regional supply.

Globally, the U.S. remains the center of gravity for megadeals and AI capex, Europe emphasizes regulatory balance and infrastructure bottlenecks, and Canada benefits from mining scale‑ups. In emerging markets, knock‑on effects include faster rollout of cloud regions and tighter competition for power and water resources.

The historical rhyme: this looks less like the debt‑soaked roll‑ups of the late 2000s and more like targeted scaling tied to visible demand. The risk is execution. Integration calendars, antitrust scrutiny, and cost of capital will decide which of these megadeals compound value beyond the headline premium.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Locke Cole

Lock Cole has two decades in financial newsrooms leading fast teams through volatile cycles. As Editorial Director at Trade Engine, Lock sets standards for verification, sourcing, and headline discipline, while coordinating coverage across Market Pulse, Sector Watch, and Stock Radar. He has built and managed cross-functional desks that marry data tools with reporting craft, and his byline has appeared on enterprise pieces that shaped investor debate. Lock has guest-lectured on newsroom operations and serves as an internal coach on ethics and style. He believes good process produces good stories, and that the cleanest writing starts with a clean idea. Off deadline, he mentors junior reporters and keeps a living playbook of best practices that the team iterates every quarter.