Is MSFT's Proposed Acquisition a Record-breaker?

The $44.6-billion Microsoft merger with Yahoo! may seem like a pretty pocket of jingle, but you may be surprised to hear that it doesn't even come close to the largest acquisition in history. Most of the really big record-breakers need to hit 12 digits, and generally fall within the 100 to $400 billion category.

The AOL Time-Warner buy is widely touted as one of the largest acquisitions (in all intents and purposes a "merger of equals") and the stock swap was valued at $284 billion. However, the Yahoo! buy isn't simple nickels and dimes for Microsoft -- if the purchase goes forward, it would be more than seven times larger than Microsoft's current largest purchase of aQuantive for $6 billion.

Last Night I Had This Nightmare image by Franz Patzig [cc, 2.0]