Inside these posts: Hostile takeover bid

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OfficeMax shares soar on takeover chatter

OfficeMax Inc. shares rose 9.3 percent to $15.69 in heavy trading Tuesday after a J.P. Morgan analyst said that the office supply company was ripe for a leveraged buyout.

The Naperville-based retailer is undervalued compared to its larger rivals Staples Inc. and Office Depot Inc., analyst Christopher Horvers said in the report. Even though OfficeMax is five years into a turnaround effort, there is still plenty of room left to restructure the business, he said. The report valued OfficeMax at $28 a share, citing the company’s cash pile along with a slew of expiring leases that would allow OfficeMax  to move to higher traffic locations and open smaller, more productive stores. Get the full story »

Potash stocks soar on corn data

Shares of Potash Corp. and other leading fertilizer makers jumped on Friday after the U.S. government estimated a smaller-than-expected U.S. corn harvest, driving up prices of the nutrient-intensive crop.

Shares of Agrium, Mosaic Co. and CF Industries also rose on the data. Get the full story »

Tempers frayed in Sanofi bid for Genzyme

Sanofi-Aventis dismissed a claim by bid target Genzyme that it dangled a higher price for the U.S. biotech company, as a trans-Atlantic takeover fight descended into an ill-tempered stand-off Friday.

Genzyme said Thursday that Sanofi’s chief executive floated the possibility of paying as much as $80 per share at a meeting in September before going hostile with a bid worth $69 per Genzyme share, or a total $18.5 billion. Get the full story »