Opening Bell: 10.28.15

Walgreens Boots Alliance to Buy Rite Aid for $17.2 Billion (Bloomberg)
The transaction would combine the second- and third-largest drugstore chains in the U.S., with a total of about 12,800 locations, helping Walgreens vault past market leader CVS Health Corp. The acquisition will add to Walgreens’ earnings beginning a full year after completion and will produce more than $1 billion in savings from cost overlaps, the companies said Tuesday in a statement. Including debt, the deal is valued at $17.2 billion, they said.

AB InBev eyes asset sale to seal SAB deal (FT)
Anheuser-Busch InBev has hired bankers to explore a sale of US assets, in a move seen as crucial to winning regulatory approval for a proposed £68bn merger of the two brewers. The assets include SABMiller’s stake in a joint venture with Molson Coors. Lead adviser Lazard and Barclays have been appointed to sell SAB’s 58 per cent stake in the joint venture, which could fetch as much as $10bn, according to people briefed on the matter. The hiring comes as AB InBev and SAB agreed to extend Wednesday’s deadline to complete the terms of the deal, a move expected to be granted by the UK Takeover Panel, people familiar with the situation said. The extension highlights the complex nature of the deal and the amount of work and people involved, including 21 banks working on AB InBev’s financing.

Hillary Clinton Gets Serious About Breaking Up Big Banks on Stephen Colbert (Bloomberg)
Her stated refusal to bail out the big banks—to let them fail, if a 2008 scenario were to repeat itself—was a crystallization, a hardening, of her economic position. “First of all, under Dodd-Frank, that is what will happen because we now have stress-tests and I’m going to impose a risk fee on the big bank if they engage in risky investor," she said. "And they have to know, what their shareholders have to know is, yes, they will fail. And if they're too big to fail, then, under my plan and others that have been proposed, they may have to be broken up.”

The Bitcoin Startup Boom Comes Back Down to Earth (Bloomberg)
After an aggressive start to 2015 that entailed venture capitalists kicking $373 million into bitcoin startups in the first half of the year, growth slowed substantially in the third quarter, according to data from researcher CoinDesk. The $85 million in investments last quarter represents a relatively modest growth rate of 15 percent from a year earlier and a 41 percent drop from the previous quarter.

Grocery Store Bans Egg Sales To Minors Around Halloween (HP)
Local resident Frank Tkachenko told The Huffington Post that he posted a photo of the sign -- which states the age restrictions are due to “safety concerns” -- online after his friend sent him the snapshot. Tkachenko said his friend took the photo at a Redner's Market store in Langhorne, but noted that he's heard of similar signs at other Redner's locations...Lancaster Online reported last year that the "no eggs to minors" rule is a chain-wide policy during the week surrounding Halloween, apparently to prevent eggings. Pete Bourey, assistant store director in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, told Lancaster Online at the time that “there’s usually not a good outcome” when teens purchase eggs in late October. He also said he had not heard any complaints about the policy.

Goldman Sachs to Spin Out Mobile-Phone Software Projects Into Separate Venture (WSJ)
The New York investment bank said it is spinning out a collection of mobile-phone software it developed in-house into a new venture. That entity will be managed and majority-owned by Synchronoss Technologies Inc., a publicly traded software firm that is increasingly trying to target business customers, the companies said.

Brazilians Expect Crisis to Linger for at Least 3 More Years (Bloomberg)
Brazil’s economy will contract 3 percent this year and 1.4 percent in 2016, according to analysts surveyed by the central bank. That would be the first back-to-back recession since 1931.

Paying Workers in Stock Can Be a Tough Sell (WSJ)
“It’s a little bit like paying your employees…in lottery tickets,” says Dirk Jenter, an associate professor of finance at the London School of Economics and the Stanford Graduate School of Business who studies employee attitudes toward equity compensation. “Most people prefer cash.”

Man goes directly to jail for brawl at Missouri Monopoly tournament (UPI)
Organizers of Saturday's 7th Annual Stone County OACAC Monopoly Tournament in Branson, Mo., told police John Litton, 69, turned violent when he was asked to sit out from this year's tournament after he allegedly engaged in unsportsmanlike conduct during last year's game. Police said there were no serious injuries when the tournament -- like so many Monopoly games -- descended into a brawl. Litton was taken directly to the Stone County Jail on charges of third-degree assault, disturbing the peace and trespassing. He was ordered held without bond.