#acquisition

#acquisition

From day one, our mission was simple: make it easy and reliable to build in prediction markets. There's no better place to push that mission forward than Polymarket.

InterContinental Hotels Group, owner of Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, and Hotel Indigo, reported robust revenue and profit growth for 2025, driven by a record hotel rollout and strategic acquisitions. The group opened 443 new hotels over the past year - adding more than 65,000 rooms - and completed its acquisition of the European hotel brand Ruby. Financially, IHG posted total revenue of $5.19 billion (£3.8 billion), up 5% from 2024, while operating profits rose 15% to $1.2 billion (£880 million).

Cenlar has a subservicing platform with $740 billion in unpaid principal balance (UPB) and 2 million loans across 100 clients, generating about $460 million in revenue in 2025. But $307 billion in UPB will not transition to Pennymac because some clients mainly UWM are bringing their subservicing activities in house. Pennymac tied part of the acquisition cost $85 million in contingent consideration payable over three years to client retention.

Palo Alto Networks has officially completed its $25 billion acquisition of CyberArk. Identity security will now become a core pillar of Palo Alto's platform offering. The deal, announced in July 2025, was completed faster than expected due to German approval. The acquisition adds more than 10,000 CyberArk customers to Palo Alto's customer base. These organizations use the platform for identity security, with a focus on Privileged Access Management. The offering focuses on securing human, machine, and AI identities.

Orna is developing a new treatment that uses circular RNA and specialized lipid particles to prompt a patient's own body to produce the cell therapies needed to fight disease. The technology has the potential to "unlock an entirely new class of genetic medicines and cell therapies for patients who today have limited or no treatment options," said Francisco Ramírez-Valle, senior vice president and head of Immunology Research and Early Clinical Development at Eli Lilly, in a statement.

To understand the strategy at work here, you likely need only look at your recent phone calls and text messages. Mobile channels are a mess. As a result, many consumers refuse to answer calls from numbers not listed in their contact list. This poses a significant problem for organizations across industries, including financial services, healthcare and the public sector, which often need to use the phone to reach people and relay critical information.

Financial terms of the deal, announced by FairWave on Feb. 2, were not disclosed. FairWave, based in Kansas City and backed by Great Range Capital , said its holdings now include 14 coffee, tea and bakery brands operating in more than 40 cafes, roasteries and bakeries. FairWave brands currently operate in the regional markets of Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Baltimore/Annapolis and North Carolina's Triangle.

Rad Power Bikes has been sold following a small private auction held on January 22. Life Electric Vehicles Holdings (Life EV) submitted the winning bid at $13.2 million, with Retrospec listed as the $13 million backup bidder. The sale follows Rad's December 2025 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, during which the company reported $32.1 million in assets against $72.8 million in liabilities.

Founded in Slovenia in 2002, REAL Security operates in eight countries across the region, connecting cybersecurity vendors with VARs, MSPs and MSSPs in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia. The firm is known for its focus on emerging technologies such as AI, machine learning, and blockchain, and as the organizer of the regional cybersecurity event, RISK.

Content creator Khaby Lame has sold his core company for $975m (R15 518 311 575). The 25-year-old Italian citizen of Senegalese descent sold his company, Step Distinctive Limited, which manages his global brand and commercial activities, to Rich Sparkle. According to PRNewsire, Rich Sparkle is a Hong Kong-based US-listed company. The acquisition signals a shift from one-off brand deals to a structured, exclusive, full-chain, platform-style commercialisation system.

Explorer Cold Brew has acquired Savorista, a specialty coffee brand focused on decaf and half-caf coffees, as Explorer works to build a multi-brand "caffeine-conscious" coffee platform. The companies announced the deal Jan. 13. Financial terms were not disclosed. In the acquisition, Explorer said it is bringing the Savorista brand, associated intellectual property and its customer base into the "Explorer family."

Authentic Brands Group has acquired a majority stake in Guess' intellectual property for $16.75 per share, according to financial filings Friday. Existing Guess shareholders - Maurice Marciano, Paul Marciano, Nicolai Marciano and Carlos Alberini and various financial affiliates - now own 49% of the brand's IP. Guess' current management also now owns 100% of the operating company and will continue to run that business, maintaining operations in Switzerland.

Smithfield President and CEO Shane Smith said that the deal was a "meaningful step" in the company's evolution. "Since entering into our licensing agreement in 2014, we have made significant investments to build and grow the Nathan's Famous brand," Smith said in a statement. "With our manufacturing scale, marketing strength, product innovation capabilities, and retail and foodservice channel expertise, acquiring Nathan's Famous will allow us to take the brand to new heights."

"This is a kind of a classic example of a prepared mind meets opportunity," Kashani said. "Robots that are moving among people is the broader opportunity for us. Once you solve the problem, which is how to get robots to seamlessly move among people as autonomous machines, then you can bring it to a lot of other environments. We knew that we wanted to do this someday."