Other reports, however, suggest that the sale was shelved so Carlyle could focus on takeover opportunities.
"There might be some more takeover opportunities for us in this industry, but we are not hunting for takeovers," he said.
Saputo said the deal would help expand its own manufacturing and distribution networks and could serve as the base for more takeover opportunities.
URS, which is financing the transaction with debt, said it was still seeking takeover opportunities in the mining sector and in other regions, like Australia and New England.
Helped by those results, AXA, which has bid $1.5 billion for the Mony Group, the New York-based insurer, is looking at takeover opportunities in markets where it already has a strong presence, the chief executive, Henri de Castries, said.
The downside of Nova Scotia's approach, said Professor Gagnon, who is a former senior manager at the Royal Bank, is that those markets usually take much longer to develop and do not afford the large takeover opportunities that are readily available in the United States.
And remember, BP turned itself into a global player via a bold acquisition spree in the late 1990s, when the low oil price threw up takeover opportunities.
He walked out of the Daily Express in April 2001 soon after Richard Desmond's takeover, rejecting the opportunity to avail himself of a tax-free payoff.
Besides economies of scale, each takeover brings fresh opportunities for cross-selling a range of financial services to customers.
BlackBerry's BBM service was long the dominant chat app there but, with the Canadian company's consumer appeal and sales declining steeply in recent years, there's an opportunity to takeover the chat space.
