There is another thread floating around FR today that says the President just found out about it last week. I sure did not hear about it in November and I bet you didn't either.
It may have been public knowledge for three months but it was not broadly known. It did not become news until some moron approved the transaction and that was just recently.
Technically speaking, you may actually be right about that. The deal was formally announced on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 -- and I first read about it in the December 5th issue of The Journal of Commerce (which probably would have reached my desk on Friday, December 2nd).
Some details of the article are as follows:
Scaling New Heights
Acquisition of P&O puts Dubai Ports World in the Top Echelon of Global Terminal Operators
The author of the article is Peter T. Leach, and the article appears on page 32 of that issue of the JOC. I hope this evidence is sufficient to convince you that this story is "old news" to some of us. In case you haven't figured it out by now -- I just pulled this off my magazine rack and I'm reading it at my desk as I type this message.
There are two key points about this article that stand out right now, in light of the idiocy we've been seeing over the last week from people in the media and in government . . .
1. There is absolutely no mention of the U.S. regulatory process that would be required, which leads me to believe that the process is much more of a mere formality than most of us seem to think.
2. The U.S. angle to the acquisition isn't a major element of the story. From an industry standpoint, the most highly-prized assets in the deal are the P&O operations in Australia, India, and Europe.