Tag: acquisition failure

Are You Ready to Do an Acquisition?

Buying another company is an excellent tactic for growing your company, but are you really ready to do a deal? About 77% of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) fail due to a variety of issues ranging from lack of strategic alignment to incomplete due diligence to culture clashes. A bad acquisition can leave a company worse …

Continue reading

What Went Wrong? Turning Acquisition Failure into Success

“We did an acquisition about 15 years ago. It did not go well…I guess you could say we are still ‘recovering,’ the CEO of a family-owned business recently shared with me during a meeting. She went on to explain there were a number of integration issues and other challenges that cropped up post-closing that the …

Continue reading

3 Reasons Deals Fall Apart Post Letter of Intent

Remember that just because a deal is announced, it doesn’t mean it will go through. A record number of M&A transactions announced in 2015 have been cancelled bringing the total deal value down from $4.374 trillion to $78 billion. Unfortunately cancelled deals mean a lot of time, resources and effort were wasted putting together these …

Continue reading

Pfizer and Allergan Break Up: Lessons in Staying Ahead of M&A Hazards

Pfizer and Allergan have announced that they are abandoning their $160 billion merger. This resulted from a political storm around tax inversions, a technique whereby US companies relocate abroad to avoid the high US corporate tax rates. The Treasury department took action to insert new rules that effectively killed the financial benefits of the deal. …

Continue reading

Verso Files for Chapter 11– What Went Wrong?

Capstone CEO David Braun’s Analysis in the Memphis Business Journal Verso Paper, after acquiring NewPage Holdings for $1.4 billion in January 2014, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Verso, which manufactures coated paper used in products like magazines, is struggling in a declining market. With its new acquisition, the company failed to realize desired economies …

Continue reading

What Drives Successful Growth through M&A? One Word: Leadership

Research indicates that up to 70% of mergers and acquisitions fail to meet stated objectives, and of those 50% will destroy shareholder value. Those are daunting statistics. Yet acquisitions remain a top means for growth in companies in the U.S. and around the world. So a key question for any organization looking at M&A as …

Continue reading

Why Do Acquisitions Fail?

Acquisitions fail for reasons that range from lack of compelling strategic rationale to inadequate due diligence to conflicting cultures. I think many would say acquisitions fail because too much was paid for them. While overpaying is certainly a reason for failure, I would not say it is the top reason. In my experience, I have …

Continue reading

Five Common Mistakes Made During an Acquisition (And How You Can Avoid Them)

About 77% of company acquisitions fail. Don’t let that number scare you off from an acquisition. Based on my observations as an M&A consultant, I’ve found most acquisitions fail due to widespread misunderstandings of the process. Head over to the ACG National Capital Blog to read my list of some of the most common mistakes …

Continue reading