2011 M&A Forecast
As every year, I would like to start the new year with some thoughts about the M&A volume for the coming year. I’ll be upfront about my outlook for 2011: it will be better than 2010, which itself was better than 2009. See below: There’s a lot of interesting things about the chart above. Most...
M&A Maturity Index — Emerging markets for M&A
If you want to expand overseas — from whatever your base — what do you do? Start up new in a country in which you’ve never operated before? Maybe a joint venture? Do a big acquisition there? If you’ve decided that an acquisition is the best route forward, then you have the big decision to...
Deal code names
One of the more interesting discussions in any deal is at the beginning when you need to decide what the confidential name should be for the project. This is needed because at that time the deal is very hush-hush secretive with few people knowing about the potential takeover or merger. Should the information about the...
What do Hostile Deals tell us?
The rise of hostile deals. Again. What does this mean? There was an interesting comment reported by Bloomberg in an interview with Steven Koch, the co-chairman of M&A at Credit Suisse (the video of the interview is here). He said the following: If you look over the last several booms that have gone on over...
M&A Hype: Has the market turned?
Readers of this blog know that I do not usually try to predict the M&A market. I like to look at longer-term trends, trying to identify the drivers for the next merger wave and seeking to provide some guidance on what will make it turn upwards. I continue to insist that M&A is a confidence...
The Wall Street Journal on why CEO’s do M&A deals quickly after being appointed
There’s been a lot of press reaction to our recent report on what happens when a new CEO takes over: ‘Here’s the deal: move fast as a new CEO’. The report was written by Cass Business School and the M&A Research Centre (MARC) (which I head). See also my blog entry ‘What comes next? Change your...
Due Diligence Requirements in M&A Deals
In QFinance, a very extensive on-line financial markets resource, I’ve written an article entitled ‘Due Diligence Requirements in Financial Transactions‘. Due diligence is a critical business intelligence process, and in our book on the use of business intelligence in doing M&A deals better (Intelligent M&A, Navigating the Mergers and Acquisitions Minefield), the chapter on due...
Equity Market Reactions to the announcement of an M&A Deal
Of principal concern to a dealmaker — whether the board of the acquiring company or the CEO recommending the deal — is whether the share price of the company will rise on the announcement of the acquisition of a target company … and by how much. Of course the target company’s share price will rise; ...
Article on CEOs and M&A deals
Thanks to Stefan Stern, the ‘On Management’ columnist in the Financial Times for his article on 18 May on our recent report on what happens when a new CEO takes over: ‘Here’s the deal: move fast as a new CEO’. That is, they do M&A deals. See my blog entry ‘What comes next? Change your CEO...
What comes next? Change your CEO and (bang!) you’re acquiring another company
Many things happen when a company gets a new CEO. Cass Business School and the M&A Research Centre (MARC) (which I head) have just released a study showing that CEO’s embark on M&A deals very quickly after being appointed. In the study which looked at 276 CEO changes from 1997 to 2009 in the UK,...
Why is European M&A so slow right now?
In the past two weeks, I’ve received numerous calls asking to explain why the M&A market in Europe was so slow in April. Some of my comments have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Financial News in articles entitled ‘Europe M&A Lags Behind World‘ and ‘European M&A set for worst month in a decade‘...
2010 in review: Intelligent Mergers Blog