In order to make deals you have to create some excess. Some guys have options, some don't.

We've been doing acquisitions all along. Now we can do bigger deals in excess of certain dollar amount.

We closed 100 software license deals in fourth quarter including three deals in excess of $1 million. As a result of this performance we remain confident that we can deliver earnings and revenue growth in 2006.

The commission had the obligation to order We Energies to return the excess revenue to ratepayers, and We Energies had the obligation to do it.

The bottom line on Knight Ridder papers is that in order to make these deals work, someone has to get extremely aggressive with costs. There's no question that this means that any buyer has to go in with a very, very sharp knife and trim the fat and maybe into the muscles to get this to work.

There is definitely an appetite to do deals among the brokers in order to diversify their coverage or as a quick way to build up corporate clients.