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‘...
Why you should do an M&A deal now
Several months ago, Legg Mason strategist Michael Mauboussin published a report entitled ‘Surge in the Urge to Merge‘. Based on some academic research reported in 2008 in the Academy of Management Journal, companies that invested in deals early in a merger cycle are more likely to be successful with their takeovers than those who invest...
M&A Forecast for 2010 — update
Well, we’ve got more than one quarter of the year gone. Is it really possible to see more clearly how 2010 will develop for the M&A markets? I think so, and one reason is the behavioural aspects of the market that cause it to be ‘sticky’, as discussed several weeks ago in an article I...
Politics and M&A
There’s a proposal in the UK to revise the rules governing public takeovers. This has been prompted by the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft, but has been bubbling under the surface for years and gains attention each time there’s a large, contested offer. The forthcoming election has given the proposals new life as well. There...
Joint Ventures: Are they a viable alternative to a full merger or acquisition?
Much of the research and reporting in M&A get done about the headline-grabbing large acquisitions and mergers. However, the unsung hero of corporate alliances are joint ventures. But we expect to see more of these, including some very big JVs. Note the announcement on 1 February of a $12 billion joint venture between oil companies...
Another view on the M&A Market in 2010 and 2011
On Thursday, 18 March, the Financial Times in a special section (‘Deals and Dealmakers’) had an article that I authored entitled: ‘A tough challenge for M&A markets’. In it, I argue that that a number of unavoidable behavioural factors are the principal impediments to a rising M&A market: just as the growth of the market...
‘Upside Risk’ in M&A
I saw a recent posting on the possibility of the stock markets having a ‘buyers’ panic’ as occurred in late summer 1982. At that time, the market increased by 37% in less than two months, having started with an increase of almost 20% as institutional buyer kicked off the rally, which then had retail buyers...
Should you do an IPO or M&A deal now?
There has been a lot of discussion recently about whether the IPO markets have re-opened. IPOs have been announced, but also many retracted as well (note the withdrawal on 10 February of Blackstone’s Travelport and, one day later, Merlin offerings, followed a few days later by Permira’s and Apax’s withdrawal of New Look). Now, it...
M&A market not doing as badly as you think
Where have all the mega-deals gone? There’s certainly been a dearth of deals since year-end. It’s been a long time since I’ve opened up the newpaper in the morning and seen any front-page headlines about a new deal. In fact, it’s been more about cancelled deals (IPOs such as New Look, Travelport and Merlin) or...
M&A Volumes were up, but what’s happened?
Typically, the volume of deals in the first quarter of the year are higher than at other times of the year. In fact, if you look at the largest deals since the mid-1990′s (all around $60 billion or more),over one-third of them were announced in January and almost half in the first quarter. Obviously, we...
Article on CEOs and M&A deals