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

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

by | Jul 22, 2019 | Acquisitions

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...
Avoiding Post-Acquisition Cost Overruns

Avoiding Post-Acquisition Cost Overruns

by | Jul 24, 2017 | Acquisitions

The WSJ reported this week that the $9.3 billion acquisition by Sherwin-Williams of Valspar has hit a snag. The acquirer stated that post-acquisition integration costs would be over six times more expensive than previously anticipated. Now this deal is related to two...

How To Get Better At Acquiring Companies

by | Feb 13, 2017 | Acquisitions

First let’s challenge the assumption – do we need to get better? Every piece of research ever done by PWC, Cass Business School or any scholarly research house points to failure. Most journalists summarize the research by saying that 80% of deals are a failure as...
A New M&A Cycle, An Old Problem

A New M&A Cycle, An Old Problem

by | Apr 28, 2015 | Acquisitions

The evidence is pouring in. M&A activity is bouncing along again. Just in the last three days I read these stories in the WSJ and Boston Globe. Health-care companies undertook $321 billion of acquisitions last year, more than double the $115 billion in 2013...