LVMH says $16.2 billion takeover of Tiffany can’t go ahead

The French conglomerate announced Wednesday that as things stand, it would not “be able to complete” the $16.2 billion deal — which was announced last November — because of “a succession of events which undermine the acquisition.”

Those events included a recent letter from the French government calling on the company to defer its takeover of Tiffany (TIF) until January 2021 in response to the US threat of taxes on French products, LVMH said in a statement.