ceo howard levine's excuse, "while our long-term positioning and growth prospects remain strong, our continue to be pressured by a difficult competitive economic environment. our core low-income customers continue to deal with elevated unemployment level, cuts to government benefits and volatility in energy prices. they are tightly managing their spending as a result." all right, guys. i have to say, levine takes the ally game to a whole new level. he makes it sound like the plight of the family dollar is the same as the plight of a middle guy. if he'd only just do something to fix poverty and unemployment and high gasoline prices in this country then family dollar would do just fine. until then, he makes it sound like the whole dollar store category will keep suffering. that is the most bogus reasoning i've heard yet. i'm surprised he didn't blame the lost war on poverty. look, there are two other publicly traded, dollar tree and dollar general and their last conference calls were bullish, how business keeps improving now that the weather isn't so horrible. if levine's ally bye had

howard levine will be staying on as ceo. i think of decades ago -- the consolidation.hael is with us from asset management. having consolidation because people need to capture revenue growth? they have to go out and acquire it from synergies? >> i think we see some of that. some of it is opportunistic. &a wheregoing for that m it is defensive. >> i see it in the tech space even. you wonder what twitter will do. are there a lot of potential acquisitions in technology? >> there are. they want to get to a new area and bring it in. whatnot,facebook and it is just a defensive move. they want the next facebook to be their operation. >> let me bring it back. when you look at family dollar and dollar tree, was it a defensive move? i think that that space is probably being squeezed at the margin. i do think that they will get together. if you look at some of the deals happening in the late 1990's, i think there is a contact acquisition. you're not saying anything as crazy as that now. some of them, you just wonder what they are doing? --everything is microsoft probably wishes h

he comes behind howard levine and fellow activist investors nelson peltz. his capital could be put to better use elsewhere. icahn mounted a public campaign last month to get family dollar to put itself up for sale. he claimed that the company was being poorly run and lagged its competitors. in a statement on monday following the dollar tree offer, icahn welcomed the deal but still hopes that a higher bid will emerge. he says, quote, this is a big win for all shareholders of family dollar and yet another vool addition of the activist investment philosophy in general, end quote. icahn sold shares on monday and tuesday at prices between 7515 and 7595 a share, above dollar tree's office, which values family dollar at 74.50 a share. and that could make him a cool profit of $174 million bucks. he says that he could sell more shares in the future. this is just the latest feather in icahn's cap, of course. in the past year, he's scored some big profits, even when his investments haven't necessarily gone the way he expected. his huge returns include netflix and dell

something i'll be trying to find out or report on. 16% voting agreement with trian and howard levineaying they'll vote in faber of the deal, $305 million breakup fee that would give another bidder pause, perhaps, not that it's unusually large, it is not. no financing contingency. but you know, we'll see from here. in terms of consolidation in this arena, walmart choosing not to play, in terms of getting bigger but goingite o ing its o. dollar general stock going down, not participating in a deal that has more synergies than the 300 million synergies in this deal. >> remember, these are urban places to shop. family dollar used to love the idea, finding that area in the lower middle class area -- >> by the way, in are keeping brands, they're not going to merge brands. >> le reason is running the family dollar brand. >> right. >> and on the board. >> howard is a universally liked individual that does, i think -- i know it sounds strange -- can come into play, no one wants to dunk howard. >> the largest retail deal of the year. in fact the fourth biggest ever, biggest since macy's bought

senators who knew russia and have experience working in russia, people like richard lugar, sam nunn howard levinnd tom lantos. they are all gone or on their way out. i have never known the level of misunderstanding of the complex realities in russia to be as low come as bad as it is in congress right now and i would say that the situation is worse in russia with the duma and the federation council and their views on the united states. so we have to got a problem there. meanwhile in brussels as we all know the ability of the europeans to forge a consensus inside the european union and the commission leads to the lowest common denominator so that the second problem. the third one and i will end on this it makes this crisis feel to me less like a cyclical downturn in more like a signal of fundamental divergence is the growing strength in russia this persuasive national idea. i like to call it ideology and you can use that word if you want that questions the utility of partnership with the west and rejects western values and institutions as any kind of a model for russia. russia turns away from the

howard levine will continue to run family dollar but report to sasser and join dollar tree's board. family dollar could fittingly bring nearly $1 of incremental earnings to dollar tree, but he's downgrading dollar tree to neutral on the deal because he doesn't think it's actually the best move for dollar tree's shareholders. bank of america merrill lynch also downgrading dollar tree on the news. so, a lot of interesting movements here with this announcement, which was in some parts a surprise and some parts somewhat expected. kelly, back to you. >> that's for sure. talk has been swirling, courtney, for a while on this one. thank you. let's talk more about who's driving this merger and who the winners and losers are. gene urkin is an m&a specialist at capello group, a boutique investment group. gene, good to have you with us. look, this consolidation happening from a place of weakness or strength, do you think? >> i think it's happening because of strength. i mean, look, you know, i think this acquisition is being done just through the natural evolution. i think when you strip everyt

this time, family dollar's ceo, howard levine, saying that customers and the consumer has not benefitedthis recovery. their consumers have not benefited in this recovery. so, ceos weighing in. it was weather the last time around. this time, they're saying that the economy is to blame. it remains to be seen whether or not people do actually open up their wallets and start spending that hard-earned money. guys, back over to you. >> dom, thanks. so, let's talk about that. is it fair to blame the consumer for the poor performance of some retailers or are they just not hitting their marks? >> that's the big question we'll put to diane swonk, chief economist at mesirow financial and ed aruma at keybanc capital markets. ed, let me start with you. which do you think it is? the consumer is being pressed on a lot of different frorngnts, b are the retailers inappropriately blaming the consumer for their woes? >> look, ultimately, if you have the right product, the consumer will shop. so, i think, yeah, there has been a lack of newness, a lack of freshness, a lack of exciting things for the consume