Background
In January 2024, Synopsys announced $SNPS (-1,29 %) announced that it would acquire Ansys $ANSS (+3,68 %) for 35 billion US dollars. The deal means that each Ansys shareholder will receive 197 US dollars and 0.345 Synopsys shares for each Ansys share held. After I became aware of this acquisition, I wrote a post on April 29, 2025 in which I pointed out the percentage difference between the then current price of Ansys stock and the sum of the price of 0.345 shares of Synopsys and the $197. That was about a 10% difference at the time. I joined Ansys as an experiment.
Today it was announced that the Chinese market regulator has granted the decisive approval for the acquisition under certain conditions. According to Reuters Synopsys and Ansys plan to finalize the acquisition on Thursday.
finance.yahoo.com please click on image for full view
Since the end of April, Ansys shares (blue) have significantly outperformed the MSCI World (purple).
What I have learned:
- I didn't have the expertise to assess whether the takeover would take place as planned.
- Not a simple, safe trade: The Ansys and Synopsys share price was very volatile.
- I underestimated the US-China risk in relation to the crucial approval of the Chinese competition authority.
- Timing is crucial: If I had entered in January, I would not have made any profits.
Disclaimer
This is not investment advice. These are personal assessments that cannot replace professional advice. You can find the detailed and complete stock analysis on my free substack (link in profile).
Conclusion
To summarize, I had more luck than sense. The composition of the deal was also relatively opaque and complicated. Personally, I will refrain from such short-term trades from now on.