Dollar's tumble to stoke U.S. biz sell-offs

The weak U.S. dollar has not only made U.S. exports more attractive to the rest of the world, but also the companies that make them.

“American assets are looking cheaper and cheaper to others in the world today,” said Leon Black, founder of Apollo Management, at a mergers and acquisitions conference in New York last week. “When you look at how weak our currency is and you look at the amount of strategics [corporate buyers] out there, all of us would agree that we're going to see a lot more purchases [of U.S. companies] by sovereign states...and European players just based on currency alone.”

The total deal value of acquisitions of U.S. companies by foreign private equity firms and companies is already up more than 18% year to date compared with all of 2006, to $374 billion, according to data from deal-tracker Zephyr. The largest such deal this year is the pending $19 billion acquisition of Lyondell Chemical by Basell of the Netherlands.

Mr. Black has firsthand experience going up against the deepening pockets of foreign buyers. Apollo bought General Electric's advanced materials unit for $3.8 billion last year and had its sights on the plastics unit as well. When GE put its plastics business up for auction in January, Apollo's bid came in third, behind that of a Russian oligarch and the winning $11.6 billion bid from Sabic of Saudi Arabia.

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