In that moment, Adam Smith was listening to the logic of the deal collapse. Alstom had been worth examining because it was financially imperiled; the value of pursuing it in the first place had been to capture its assets at a bargain, strip what GE wanted, and then sell the rest, like an old car, for the parts. Now the company was talking about making sure Bouygues saw a return on its investment in a company that, absent a buyer, seemed to be headed for bankruptcy or a possible government bailout. Going into the deal with that kind of logic, Smith thought, GE would be seriously overpaying on
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