swing.monday is in full the parent company of lane bryant and dress barman announcing that they will be buying the owner of ann taylor and loft ran's. the bloomberg deals reporter ed hammond joined mark crumpton and discuss therlier to market, particularly in the retail space. >> we will see more retail m&a across all sectors. anyone in spent -- in sponsor hands is on the block, no shortage of those, we have seen a few processes going to sponsors and failing this year, search he goes was the obvious one. everyone is looking at that as the other one. there is a bunch more kind of out there. some smaller names, some more troubled or distressed. and again, some of the really big ones, which we saw last year with j.crew, there was a lot of talk that they were going to be by japan. does that come back? a good bet bs. marshall: -- a good that would be yes. >> i think that that is the biggest macro theme in the m&a markets today. were all the wind in the sales of m&a, most of it includes companies legal positioning themselves for recovery on the growth side or for what they think is value o

bryant for large girls, which ann does not sell. there is a bit at dress barn and a bit but very very small amount we've seen in our research. >> loft is what the 18 to 60. so that's something different for you guys to have that long arc. >> fashion for every woman. wonderful store. >> how is business in general? apparel is really hard. in the time that you and i have gotten to know each other, i cannot believe how hard the apparel business is. >> you know what happened? there is shifting of spending to durables or -- >> yes, home depot, to home depot. >> home depot, home furnishings, peep people want to redo their kitchen or living room or smart watches or smart phones. some of the restaurants and theme parks have done well over the last couple years. but we're beginning see a few green chutes so we're watching it carefully but we think the consumer is starting to swing back into fashion. so when we've got great fashion at any of the brands it's the fashion that is selling us not the basics. the woman wants fashion and if we do a g

lane bryant and dress barn -- a company for $2.1 billion. international with acquisition of $8 billion. mark: what should we make of all of this activity? london and our guest in studio. thank you, gentlemen. ed, let me start with you. endo international -- the aggressiveness we are seeing, is that something we should be surprised about, or is it a sector story? ed: i think two things. first, we see a sector story. we see high prices being paid across the pharmaceutical industry. and i think it is almost more important, this is an end of story -- endo story. have been very aggressive in this space. the interesting use of this, the chief exec of endo is formally ofvaleant. have been very aggressive in this space. thehe is telling his former bos, anything you can do, i can do better. betty: you see a aggressiveness in this sector. what do you do? took a very, very good run at activists. god bless them. 27 times even up. -- ebitda. and now they're going after something and $8 billion is not a bad consolation prize. they are using stock to pay f

it's funny that the names associated with these two companies, lane bryant dress barn charming the names are more famous than the company itself. ann taylor 18 billion market cap. that's it. that's a small, small cap a name. veers on microcap. ascena is only ann is a bit higher at this point, this is part of the broader consolidation here. still too many retailers out there, still more overstore than anywhere else in the world. it was 56% a fewiers for ann, that really matters in this kind of environment. that may have been a factor wile they were sold. apparel shows up a bit. chico is up abercrombie, francesca, all fractional gains, as you can see here today. oil was near the high for the year overnight. that has put pressure on the airlines. virgin, southwest, american are weak. i've been noting the major indices have really kind of bifurcated. the transporting are down 5%. that's a big of a strange bifurcation. >>> finally jvp morgan starting its conference today. we asked our friends about that. the last ten years this conference has gone on in the three days it's been happening, net

they also own dress barn and lane bryant. the french company that owns fashion brands gucci is suing chinese e-commerce giant alibaba for profiting for counterfeit items told in counterfeit stores, a long running issue for alibaba and other chinese e-commerce sites having such big problems in china. and look at the big board. the dow is up by 4 points, the nasdaq is down 2 and the s&p 500 lower by 1 point. >> thank you, jason. >>> last week congresswoman loretta sanchez announced she is running to represent california in the u.s. senate. >> and already she is getting lots of attention, mostly for a comment she made over the weekend. political analyst melissa cane is here to explain what happened, right? >> yes. the democratic convention had her making it interesting. political junkies are thrilled, first, with the announcement they will be in this race. start with the understanding that being the senator from california, the biggest economy in the union and biggest state in the union is a big deal. so far the race for the big

justice and lane bryant are currently owned by sena. it's up 19%. the shares of ascena are down 2%. >>> 2014 was a practically electrifying year for utilities. there was a gain of almost 30%, but so far it's been a different story. the sector is down 7%. >> so we asked is this a buying opportunity there? robert frost reminds us that utilities suffer in a rising rate environment which we may by heading toward and the impact for potentially higher rates later this year may already price -- be priced into this market. good to see you both. thank you for joining us today. michael, make the case. you think that -- tillty -- utilities are a buy right now. >> correct. if we look at the historical context for the decline the utilities have dropped by more than 12.5%. the biggest drop since the beginning of the bull market. historically speaking if we're not in the bull market, you have a very attractive entry point for investment into utilities. in addition to that, as we look at the interest rates moving higher over the past few weeks last week we saw a lo

the company that owns the clothing stores dressbarn and lane bryant is buying ann taylor for $2.1 billion. yeah, a lot of shoppers from those three stores had opinions on the buyout. here's what a few of them had to say. the first woman said, "that's great. i love their stuff." this next woman said. "that's pretty interesting, i guess." next woman said, "holy crap, are you serious? this is a major game-changer." [ laughter ] [ applause ] this next woman said, "i don't really have an opinion on this." this next woman said, "you're telling me dressbarn, laney b., and tay-tay-la are all under the same roof?" liz claiborne gets in on this, it's gonna stir up a shiz show in this piece." [ laughter ] [ cheers and applause ] this next woman said, "i just got shoved to the ground by hillary clinton." [ laughter ] and finally, this man said, "i'm more of a victoria's secret guy." [ cheers and applause ] we have a great show! give it up for the roots, ladies and gentlemen, thank you! [ cheers and applause ] ♪ >> jimmy: hey, thank you very much. thank you for watching. welcome everybody. hey every

buyer is the the retail group which already own lane bryant, dress barn and within of chris's favorite stores. >> that is right. >> what is it. >> it is casey. >> the buy out was approved by the board of both of those companies. >>> do you drink star bucks. >> do i not drink coffee. >> well, you have to listen to this do you like music. >> i love music. >> star bucks and spotify will team up that will give star bucks loyalty customers unique access to the streaming device. customers will be able to influence and specially inn store music on spotify. tar bucks has the the best pr machine in the world getting tuesday run their stories on the news. they will have access to play list on the stores after leading them through star bucks and spoti if. y apps. they will earn star bucks reward points if you like star bucks. >>> if you have not booked your summer vacation, you may want to hurry and get this trip book. >> u.s. airlines are bracing for a record number of pass edgers from june 1 to august 31st, industry research group airlines for america says 222 million travelers will fly this su

dress barn and lane bryant and that it didn't matter. i thought that reversal was key. if you wanted j&j to do a deal you wanted them to think the stock would go up as back to when it decided to pay for pharmaceuticals. let's keep an eye on that. >> abbvie. just got married. had a nice big wedding. >> liberty warehouse? >> i think they had jewel play. very nice. you didn't have jewel. >> i didn't need jewel. >> no you didn't. >> and there was lots of joy in the room. >> i didn't need jewel. jewel. >> a couple of upgrades. mastercard pacific crest to overweight. >> a bunch of new services. something about europe doing well. this was a group i was concerned about, candidly. they had such a big run. i like everything i hear about mastercard. home depot doing well. the cfo talking about how may was very strong. people worried about the progression. how is may doing? urban out fitter said may is better. maybe there is a hope here. urban is down six. if may is strong that would be a very good sign for the u.s. although immediately, i have to talk about san francisco versus at

and athena actually owns dress barn as well as lane bryant, and this will be a $2.2 billion deal. more "varney & company" coming up. tom: let's take a look at apple shares. according to the latest sec findings analysts are cutting their stakes in apple even as the shares are going higher and just last hour carl icahn says he thinks the stock could hit $240. it's at $130 he says 240. what do you think? joining us now from portland keith fitzgerald. keith, let's get you on, 240 or 130 which one do you like? >> well i'm not as aggressive as icahn, but i'm on record at $200 within 24 months. tom: carl icahn-like let's put it that way. [laughter] why are the hedge funds saying bye-bye to apple? >> the hedge funds don't run their portfolios like individual investors do, tom, they can sell for generating cash, they can sell just because their management has a different prerogative. so as an investor, you've got to look for yourself at apple and figure out what you want it to do. i think it's looking at automobiles, entertainment, there's a $2.3 billion addressable market, and i think tha

bryant and dress barn. so that should give the markets a lift. we're coming off of record highs already on this monday morning. another busy week for retail earnings, american consumer very much in focus. tomorrow we'll hear from the mother of retailers, walmart and home depot. then later in the week we'll get results from target and gap on thursday. i wanted to mention two interesting things that google is doing in the news. number one, the self-driving cars they're in test phases but they'll be hitting the roads in mountain view, california, google's hometown coming up very soon here. these the two seater no gas pedal steering wheel optional. it's an important phase in the test market. also google according to the "wall street journal" will start having bye buttons on its search results on mobile which is a risky move but certainly shows that google is getting aggressive when it comes to e-commerce going up against amazon.com. it will be interesting to see whether that influences the search results we use

. >> arson investigator mike lane knew from experience that there was a way that bryant could have killed ms. haynes, started the fire and still have been at the movie two hours later. >> the delayed-ignition device is something that an arsonist would use so that they can be someplace else when the fire starts. and it may be for minutes. it could be for hours. in all actuality, it could be for days, the more sophisticated it is. >> as for bryant's alibi, investigators had one question. who keeps a movie receipt? >> it is inconceivable that someone would keep in their records one movie stub, one restaurant receipt, unless they were keeping it for a specific reason. and his reason was that he wanted to be able to establish an alibi. >> scott peebles checked out michael bryant's background and discovered that bryant had been married before, so he called bryant's ex-wife. >> we learned from her that he was fascinated with fire and would frequently dabble with pyrotechnics, so to speak. >> she also told peebles that the home they owned together mysteriously burned to the ground. bryant's ex-wi