Thursday, November 5, 2026

The Daily Buyout

51 deals · $2.6B announced

A Spectrum Brands-Oaktree venture has taken its pursuit of Hydro Flask owner Helen of Troy public with a $1.6 billion unsolicited offer. Kraft Heinz is selling Maxwell House as part of its turnaround. And Meta and OpenAI each picked up a coding startup on the same day.

Top deal of the day

Empower Brands goes public with $1.6B unsolicited bid for Helen of Troy

$1.6BHostile / unsolicited bidConsumer & Retail

Empower Brands, a Spectrum Brands and Oaktree Capital joint venture, made a non-binding, all-cash proposal of $37 per share for Helen of Troy, owner of Hydro Flask, Osprey and OXO. The offer implies an enterprise value of about $1.6 billion. An Empower affiliate already owns about 4.5% of the shares, and the bidder accuses Helen of Troy's board of blocking talks.

Why it matters: After private approaches since July went nowhere, Empower is taking its case straight to shareholders, setting up a potential contest over a well-known consumer brands portfolio.

Read at Retail DiveFree

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UndisclosedStrategic acquisitionTechnologyCompleted

Meta buys AI coding startup Conductor

Meta Platforms has acquired Conductor, whose app lets developers run several AI coding agents at once in isolated copies of a codebase. Terms were not disclosed. Conductor says more than 100,000 people use the product, and it will shut down its cloud service on November 20.

Read at SiliconANGLEFree

$650MDivestiture / carve-outConsumer & Retail

Kraft Heinz sells Maxwell House coffee unit to One Rock for $650M

Kraft Heinz will sell its North American coffee business, including Maxwell House and Gevalia, to private equity firm One Rock Capital Partners at a $650 million enterprise value. Kraft Heinz keeps a 30% noncontrolling stake. It will use about $500 million in post-tax proceeds to pay down debt, and the deal is expected to close in mid-2027.

Read at CNBCFree

UndisclosedStrategic acquisitionTechnology

OpenAI to acquire developer tooling startup Pierre Computer

OpenAI plans to acquire Pierre Computer, which runs a cloud service where AI agents store the code they generate and builds open-source libraries already used in OpenAI's Codex. Terms were not disclosed.

Read at SiliconANGLEFree

$240MStrategic acquisitionHealthcare & Life SciencesCompleted

Agilent closes $240M Proscia digital-pathology deal

Agilent Technologies has completed its acquisition of Proscia, a provider of digital-pathology software for clinical and life-sciences customers. Agilent paid $240 million in cash at closing, with up to $30 million more tied to future performance milestones.

Read at Business WireFree

30 employeesStrategic acquisitionFinancial Services

KeyCorp to buy private capital adviser Atlantic-Pacific Capital

KeyCorp, a Cleveland bank with $193 billion in assets, will acquire New York-based Atlantic-Pacific Capital, which has handled about 180 capital-raising assignments totaling $123 billion for alternative asset managers. The deal adds about 30 employees. Terms were not disclosed.

Read at Banking DiveFree

$17.37/shareTake-privateIndustrials & Manufacturing

Luxfer shareholders approve Wynnchurch take-private

Shareholders of materials engineering company Luxfer Holdings voted at two meetings in London to approve its acquisition by affiliates of Wynnchurch Capital. Under the deal, shareholders will receive $17.37 per share.

Read at Business WireFree

UndisclosedStrategic acquisitionFinancial Services

OppFi pulls regulatory applications for BNC bank deal

Subprime lender OppFi has withdrawn its applications to acquire Arizona-based BNC National Bank, citing a lack of clearly stated standards from the OCC, Fed and FDIC. Its CEO says the merger agreement with BNCCORP remains in effect.