Whats the name of the famous hostile takeover where the winner payed less than the loser In my studies I learned about a bid war ending in a hostile takeover where the winner ended up paying less than the loser offered. It is a very nice demonstration of elements of game theory so I would like to reread that again and to recommend it to a friend.
Unfortunately, I cannot find it in the internet regardless of what search terms I try. I will state the details I remember. I would be very glad if the answer could tell which companies were included so I can research the interesting details.
Here we go:

Two companies, A and B, competed about to acquire a third one.
The bid war happened at least 10 years ago, maybe more.
The bid war ended in a hostile takeover.
Company A offered a fixed amount. I am not sure, but that offer might have been valid only if enough shareholders accepted it.
Company B offered a higher amount regardless of enough shareholders accepting it. However, if a certain number of shares were reached, the offered price was reduced linearly.
B's offer was dominating A's offer. B won the hostile takeover.
In the end, shareholders received less for their shares than what A offered initially. (This is the crazy thing about this bid war).

I was unable to translate that list in sufficient search terms. Does it ring a bell for someone?
With the help of a former fellow student I was able to find out some details.
The anecdote was about the following three companies:

Macy's, Inc.
Robert Campeau
Federated (covered in the article about Macy's)

Some news coverage exists:

https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2011/09/20/when-game-theory-backfires-a-case-study-of-robert-campeaus-takeover-bid/
https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1990/06/18/73686/index.htm

In short, Macy's offered \$67 per share contingent on getting a majority of shares. Campeau offered \$74 per share if less than half was tendered, otherwise $\frac {0.5}{x} * \\\$74 + \frac {x - 0.5}{x} * \\\$60$ with $x$ the fraction of shares offered to Campeau. It seems as if the bidding war continued a bit after this scheme. The prices given in the blog above differ, I am sticking to these from the lecture.
I am very grateful for having had the opportunity to attend Prof. Kirste's lectures at the Universität Rostock. They were full of impressive details like this gem here.