We want to congratulate our board member Alexandra Reed Lajoux and her co-author Dennis Roberts on the recent release of the latest in The Art of M&A series published by McGraw Hill. The Art of Bank M&A is the first of its kind in the series of books by Lajoux in that it is written to address M&A within a vertical industry vs a general M&A practice area. It is an outstanding study of the industry and goes beyond M&A by providing history and

In my past three blogs, I have discussed the Value of Certainty, The Value of Stability and the concept of Value Preservation Before Value Creation. In this issue, I want to close the series by acknowledging that the best deals are those where the deal team is truly focused on Value….. Value by the numbers and not the cosmetics in this new economy.

Since the BHP-Billiton proposal to acquire Potash Corporation was turned down by the Canadian Government in 2010, there has been an air of uncertainty regarding Canadian foreign takeover policy.  On the one hand, the government of Canada has continued to indicate that foreign investment is welcomed, but on the other hand, no explanation was provided for the Potash Corporation decision and so buyers have been left guessing about unwritten takeover restrictions.

Companies, their customers, and their stakeholders cannot and will not tolerate an integration time frame of more than 12 months, period. If you can’t integrate in 12 months or less, forget it! Many companies consistently operate in the intuitive mode of “don’t rock the boat”, “let’s take our time with this and give the organization time to adjust,” “let’s get

To be successful in acquisitions and integrations, we strongly recommend that organisations focus on some key numbers. The first number to focus on is ‘70’, as in the Rule of 70/70. Up to 70 percent of acquisitions fail to increase shareholder value and 70 percent of the reason for this has to do with what acquirers do (or do not do) in the integration planning and execution phase.

Sleep to succeed…..What?  That’s right, the evidence is in and all of us “Type A’s” or wannabees need to get at least one more hour of sleep each night to improve our effectiveness over time.  I know what you’re thinking -- “how can a person in M&A who is expected to put in 18-hour days running around with their hair on fire supposed to take sleep seriously?”  After all, we have come to worship the overachiever… not the sleeper.

You’ve heard the old one-liner about the two things you never want to see being made. The first is sausage. The other is legislation. Or, in our case, M&A methodology. First, let’s define what we are talking about. When we say “M&A methodology” we are referring to how your organization does M&A. This is the overall deal

Most companies have to consider acquisitions and divestitures at different stages of development. Ultimately, most companies will also be faced with an opportunity to sell the entire company, and in some cases there will be little choice if shareholders like the premium being offered. Yet, many companies do not consider acquisitions, divestures or, in particular, the ultimate sale of the company as part of strategy development.

Jim Jeffries recently asked me “what’s new” in the second edition of my book Joining Forces: Making One Plus One Equal Three in Mergers, Acquisitions and Alliance. I responded that, since the book’s initial publication, the role of culture in M&A has become much more widely recognized, but not in an obvious way. Recent research conducted for the new edition shows that culture—and, in particular culture clash—can be a boon or a bust

In my last blog, I pointed out the value of certainty in M&A.  As increasing levels of scrutiny are applied to deal success by stakeholders, there is a requirement that growth by acquisitions become more of a core competency for active buyers just like other competitive advantages within the company.  There is great value in the certainty that an acquisition will be successful.  But, most are not.