Mastering the Merger: Four Critical Decisions That Make or Break the Deal

Overall, this is a good book where the M & A process is nicely laid out and with critical decisions clearly explained. The part on why you should go away from a deal is valuable as it is always forgotten in other M & A books. There are several weak areas nonetheless in this book. The link with strategy is a bit simplistic: "organic growth is not enough, you have to acquire to really grow... and we have the data backing this claim." It is as easy to prove or contradict, depending on what you want to say - and recent financial litterature (and real life examples) tends to contradict this claim. Examples are sometimes not adequate. In particular, the ultimate strategic choice made in the Newell/Rubbermaid case and praised by the authors is a mere corporate strategy 101 mistake. Typically you would integrate some of the operations but not the marketing/channels, and certainly not the brands. I don't know any commodity products that managed to become high-end branded ones. By the way, the CEO who is praised in the book got kicked out by N/R around the time of the book release (and his track record is not fabulous). Otherwise, the book is easy to read and enjoyable - except the beginning which is a bit long. The last area that I found a bit annoying is the continuous repetition of how good Bain's studies backing the book are. When you look closely, these studies are merely several interesting but lose statistical analysis that are mostly based on CEO interviews who have themselves a vested interest in saying how good they are at M & A. Nothing to brag about. But all in all, this is a relatively good read.

Mergers and acquisitions (M & A) are often essential to a company's growth and viability. However, a staggering 70 percent of mergers fail, often with devastating consequences for all concerned. For executives contemplating a deal, Mastering the Merger is filled with excellent, actionable advice. It is written in a tight, compelling way that business leaders will find quite useful. Mastering the Merger focuses on the importance of due diligence well before targets are identified and M & A decisions are made. Specifically, it describes: 1. The most important questions prospective acquirers must ask before consummating any deal, regardless of size. Here the authors show executives how to ask and answer the big questions. 2. Strategies and tactics to effectively target acquisitions and close deals. 3. How to decide which aspects of a newly acquired business to leave independent and which to integrate. The authors focus here on how to integrate quickly but where it matters. 4. How to anticipate and deal with contingencies. The emphasis is on how to predict and manage the unexpected. Authors David Harding and Sam Rovit are partners at Bain and Company, an elite business consulting firm that specializes in increasing the underlying market value of companies. Because successful mergers are a key method of increasing a company's value, Harding and Rovit are in an excellent position to share what works and what does not.

The odds are overwhelmingly against merger success - academic studies say 70% of mergers fail. Yet the biggest, most successful companies in the world grew through mergers and acquisitions. Building a global corporation from organic growth alone is nearly impossible. In this excellent discussion of merger basics, authors David Harding and Sam Rovit point out some facts that most academic analyses of mergers ignore. They show how successful acquirers tilt the odds in their favor. The secret is experience, doing a lot of small deals and focusing relentlessly on each investment. The mergers most likely to falter are the big deals that make the papers and wind up proving the academic case that most mergers fail. We encourage CEOs to read this book - especially CEOs whose consultants and investment bankers have been advising them to acquire or merge.