This happens all the time, even for acquisitions which eventually succeed. Eric Sink sold his company to Microsoft and mentioned at the BoS 2010 conference tha

This happens all the time, even for acquisitions which eventually succeed. Eric Sink sold his company to Microsoft and mentioned at the BoS 2010 conference that the deal status was "Totally dead: neither party will take any more action regarding this opportunity" two separate times prior to them finally doing it.