M&A Success – The Secret Sauce

M&A Success – The Secret Sauce

The WSJ recently published a great summary of the worst deals in history titled, “How Bayer-Monsanto became One of the Worst Corporate Deals – in 12 Charts” (Aug 28, 2019). In April 2015, before the acquisition of Monsanto, Bayer was the most valuable German company...
M&A – Buying a House with the Family Still Inside

M&A – Buying a House with the Family Still Inside

In a recent workshop I started my chat with a statement: “Buying another company is just like buying a house, as long as you remember you’re buying the family inside it as well! I wanted to sear that image in the minds of my audience. Acquisitions fail mainly for one...
Why Are We So Bad At Acquisitions?

Why Are We So Bad At Acquisitions?

Campbell Soup acquired Bolthouse for $1.55 billion in 2012 to enter the fresh food category and earlier this week announced it was divesting of the company for $510m to Butterfly Equity, an LA based PE group. PWC conducted a survey in 2013 of 106 executives at Fortune...
M&A Negotiation Checklist

M&A Negotiation Checklist

Whether you’re buying or selling it always helps to have a little checklist by your side for those big meetings. Here is my top 20 tips: Checklist Always clarify the up to date position. e.g. when buying a company, talking to the owner – perhaps you could update...