If you grew up on Pizza Hut I have some important news: there’s a chance they might be acquired before the year’s out.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing…
It’s true.
But they’re not the only one.
There’s eleven more companies in a Polymarket event sitting at $16 million in volume right now.
All waiting to see who gets scooped up before December 31, 2026.
Doesn't matter if the deal closes, just entering into an agreement to acquire the listed company by end of year counts.
With that in mind, here are a few names worth talking about.
Let’s see if we can make a trade this morning…
Viking Therapeutics — 65%
Viking is a pure-play GLP-1 and obesity drug developer with late-stage assets, manufacturing agreements in place, and a major cash runway.
Big pharma (Pfizer, AbbVie, Roche) has been publicly identified as needing an obesity entry, and building one from scratch takes a decade.
Buying Viking gets you Phase 3 assets and an established pipeline in one transaction.
Also, seventeen of eighteen covering analysts have Viking at Buy or Outperform, and the M&A narrative has been nonstop for awhile now.
However, the risk is that the story is almost too well-telegraphed.
At 65 cents, it’s possible.
Even though Viking has zero approved products, zero commercial infrastructure, and zero in-house manufacturing.
The catch might be, is that Viking is very desirable on paper.
From a buyer’s point of view, you’re looking at a crowded field, binary late‑stage risk, real manufacturing lift, and a target that’s not in distress.
Buyers get clinical-stages.
That's not disqualifying. But it doesn’t make for a slam dunk.
Besides, the competitive landscape is brutal — Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk have entrenched prescriber relationships, payer contracts, and manufacturing scale that Viking can't touch.
Viking isn’t a monopoly either, they're one of several contenders in an increasingly crowded field.
And with $700 million in cash and no debt, let’s be honest, what’s the urgency to sell?
BP — 41%
This one is more interesting than it looks, but probably still overpriced…
Shell and BP merger talks actually happened.
They were initiated, got serious enough to involve Shell's head of M&A, and were then abandoned in June 2025 after Shell CEO Wael Sawan reportedly objected.
Three days before BP's new CEO was announced, the Financial Times reported that Shell's M&A chief quietly left the company shortly after the proposal was rejected. That's not nothing.
The new BP CEO is Meg O'Neill. The same person who successfully pulled off the Woodside-BHP Petroleum merger in Australia.
Shell's chairman Sir Andrew Mackenzie was formerly at BHP and knows O'Neill personally.
They've essentially done a deal together before.
If a Shell-BP conversation re-opens, these two have a working relationship and a shared playbook.
Historically though, in case you were wondering, Shell and BP aren't Standard Oil descendants.
Shell built its own empire as a direct competitor to Standard Oil, and BP traces back to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company founded in 1909.
A Shell-BP merger wouldn't be old pieces snapping back together the way ExxonMobil and Chevron were.
It would be two fully independent, nation-scale energy empires combining for the first time ever.
Which makes it a completely different regulatory and political conversation.
The corporate chemistry could be now more real than 41%.
But clearing regulators across multiple governments, financing a deal of this scale, and getting it announced by December 31, 2026 specifically doesn’t make it look easy.
That’s s a lot of ground to cover in a short window.
Pizza Hut — 38%
Unlike BP, Pizza Hut has an actual corporate process already underway.
Yum! Brands announced in late 2025 that it would formally explore strategic alternatives for Pizza Hut, explicitly including a full or partial sale.
Analysts have modeled a Pizza Hut divestiture yielding roughly $3.4 billion after tax, framed as a way for Yum! to focus resources on faster-growing Taco Bell and KFC.
The company is already closing around 250 U.S. Pizza Hut locations in 2026 as part of “repositioning” — which could be the "we are preparing for a transaction” move…
So what’s the holdup?
Well, typically once "strategic alternatives" or initiative announcements are made only about 30-35% result in a completed sale within 12 months.
The review could end with a sale, a spin, a partial stake deal.
Or simply a, "Hey, we've decided to keep it."
The real risk to a Pizza Hut Yes isn't running out of time to close, it's the review ending without a qualifying transaction at all.
38% reflects a real shot for sure, but whether that process produces a resolution by December 31 only time will tell.
Zoom — 13%
13%? What’s this? Are they serious?
Could Zoom actually get acquired, or does 13% feels like a wildcard?
Right now, there's no credible suitor, no active strategic review, no serious analyst framing Zoom as an imminent buyout target.
(Which could be a tell in and of itself)
But the companies that would logically, “logically", want it (think Microsoft, Google, Salesforce) would face a regulatory nightmare.
Management isn't acting like a company preparing to sell.
I mean, look at this acquisition report card.
BrightHire in November 2025. Bonsai announced and closing by year end.
I mean, zoom out, no pun intended. But AI is quietly eating into Zoom's core use case. The moat is more narrower than ever.
AI is eating into every software company right now.
The competitive pressure from Microsoft Teams and every other AI meeting app alone is relentless.
Plus, the stock has never recovered from its pandemic peak.
But again, look, if revenue disappoints and AI pressure intensifies, there's significant operating leverage left in 7,400 employees.
With that many employees, even 10-15% reduction would free up hundreds of millions per a couple years.
I don’t think they’re hurting right now.
Anthropic — 12%
Speaking of, did you know Zoom made a strategic equity investment in Anthropic in 2023?
Baird analysts have argued the vast majority of the ~$51 million Zoom disclosed in "strategic investments" in 2023 went to Anthropic.
Could that be why both names ended up as Polymarket strikes?
While they're absolutely connected, it gets better…
Before you bet the Anthropic acquisition line, let’s be smart and check what else is happening in prediction markets about acquisitions, IPO’s, AI companies…
Sure enough, there is…
Kalshi has Anthropic at 63% to announce an IPO this year.
Wait a minute, a 63% chance of going public AND a 12% shot at getting acquired?
Hmmm, that changes things doesn’t it?
It doesn’t look like the market isn't pricing a sale.
It's pricing a public offering.
How many companies you know do both?
So is that 12% on Polymarket a real signal, or is it a decoy for anyone who isn't looking around?
That's the whole lesson here.
Not whether Anthropic gets acquired, but that for those who aren’t asking the right questions will missing out on better opportunities than long shots on AI companies.
Always check what other prediction markets are pricing on the same topic.
Sometimes the 12% isn't the asymmetric upside we’re looking for. It’s a trap.
Happy Friday.
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