The German M&A market started off with a bang in the new year. RWE and E.ON are set to swap a large part of their businesses, with E.ON now planning to concentrate on grid and energy sales, and RWE on energy generation. The complex transaction has a reported total volume of around EUR 43 bn and includes E.ON’s acquisition of innogy, innogy’s break-up, and RWE’s approximately 16.7 % participation in E.ON, plus a settlement payment to E.ON of some EUR 1.5 bn. SAP plans to acquire the U.S. cloud provider Callidus for around EUR 2 bn. HSH Nordbank will be the first German Landesbank to be privatized, transferring into the hands of a syndicate involving J.C. Flowers and Cerberus for around EUR 1 bn. Deutsche See will soon belong to the fishery Parlevliet & Van der Plas. Bosch and Continental are joining the shareholder group of the navigation service Here, and Deutsche Telekom is founding a joint venture with the Zeiss group to develop data glasses. Continue reading.