Colin Hopkins, Partner of BTD, takes a look at the latest advisor rankings and reflects on the increased volume/size of deal fees and/or rankings and their link to the quality of the deals done. I was drawn to an article recently in Acquisition Daily which provides the latest world-wide rankings...
As part of our ongoing look at the internal business conditions that drive long-term M&A success, we've recently uncovered an interesting finding. In the experience of the executives we've surveyed: Only 42% of Board Chairmen and Non-Executive Directors regularly restrain undue management enthusiasm for a deal. For...
Have your say on internal conditions and attitudes conducive to successful M&A. Regardless of the economic climate, M&A continues to have an unenviable reputation of high risk and failure rates, still as high as 40% according to some recent reports. While many organisations consistently make M&A...
Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal and others reported on Xstrata Glencore's post-merger writedown of $7.7bn, equivalent to over 10% of the combined annual turnover for the group, and over 13 times the targeted annual synergies of $500 million. More so than any other...
Interesting developments continue in the merger efforts of American Airlines and US Airways: According to the Washington Post, the U.S. Department of Justice and several states have just sued to block the proposed merger of American Airlines and US Airways, arguing that the new $11 billion airline would reduce...
In our work over the years, businesses typically do a great job of estimating and tracking the added costs of acquiring a business (eg broker commissions, legal fees, etc). Most also go to great lengths to model desired synergies (both top and bottom-line), and build...
The announcement on 28th July of the merger of these two substantial firms with combined revenues of $23billion reminds me of the one time editor of Campaign, Bernard Barnett’s quote ‘there are many ways to destroy an advertising agency but I have never come across...
OK, M&A is back on the corporate agenda; there is cash available, targets identified and teams assembled in readiness with all the requisite tools and skills. All this is necessary of course, alongside a well-structured framework for executing on the selected deal (both pre- and...
Over-preparation, which usually manifests itself in extremely detailed, all-encompassing, grand plans, is a hazard that can arise particularly where integration leaders have previously burnt their fingers from ‘being taken by surprise’ by unexpected events. Understandably, they attribute this to having been previously under-prepared, and instead...