Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) 2022 guide by Mordecai Gal? What is a merger between two firms? A merger is referred to as a financial operation in which two companies join each other and continue business operations as one legal entity. Generally, mergers can be divided into five different categories: Conglomerate merger: Merging companies offer completely different products and/or services. A note for this mergers and acquisitions guide is that the type of merger selected by a company primarily depends on the motives and objectives of the companies participating in a deal.
What are the Different Motives for Mergers? Companies pursue mergers and acquisitions for several reasons. The most common motives for mergers are: Economies of Scope: Mergers and acquisitions bring economies of scope that aren’t always possible through organic growth. One only has to look at Facebook to see that this is the case. Despite providing users with the ability to share photos and contact friends within its platform, it still acquired Instagram and Whatsapp. Economies of scope thus allow companies to tap into the demand of a much larger client base.
Opportunistic Value Generation: Some of the best deals happen when a company isn’t even actively pursuing an acquisition. The hallmark of these acquisitions is that the purchase price is less than the fair market value of the target company’s net assets. Often these companies will be in some financial distress, but a deal can be made to keep the company afloat while the buyer benefits from adding immediate value as a direct consequence of the transaction.
Higher Levels of Competition: The larger the company, in theory, the more competitive it becomes. Again, this is essentially one of the benefits of economies of scale: being bigger allows you to compete for more. To take an example: there are currently dozens of upstart companies entering the plant-based meat market, offering a range of vegetable-based ‘meats’.But when P&G or Nestle begin to focus on this market, many of the upstarts will fall away, unable to compete with these behemoths.
Increased Market Share: One of the more common motives for undertaking M&A is increased market share. Historically, retail banks have looked at geographical footprint as being key to achieving market share and as a result, there has always been a high level of industry consolidation in retail banking (most countries have a group of “Big Four” retail banks. A good example is provided by the Spanish retail bank Santander, which has made the acquisition of smaller banks an active policy, allowing it to become one of the largest retail banks in the world.
High value mergers and acquisitions (M&A) usually to get the biggest headlines in newspapers, but research indicates that executives should be paying attention to all the smaller deals, too. These smaller transactions, when pursued as part of a deliberate and systematic M&A program, tend to yield strong returns over the long run with comparatively low risk. And, based on Mordechai Gal‘s research, companies’ ability to successfully manage these deals can be a central factor in their ability to withstand economic shocks. The execution of such a programmatic M&A strategy is not easy, however.
Success in M&A requires much more than just executing on a big amount of deals. Acquirers must articulate exactly why and where they need M&A to deliver on specific themes and objectives underlying their overarching corporate strategies. In addition, they must give careful thought as to how they plan to pursue programmatic M&A—including constructing a high-level business case and preliminary integration plans for each area in which they want to pursue M&A.
Why Mergers and Acquisitions Fail? There are many reasons so let’s discuss some of them: Overextending : ‘Bolt on’ mergers and acquisitions when target companies which are small in size relative to the acquiring company – are usually considered to be the best type of transactions. One of the main strands of thought behind this is that they don’t require as many resources to be acquired or to be integrated. At the other side of this equation, are those transactions that require significant resources on the part of the acquiring firm. Loading up on debt to acquire any firm creates a pressure from day one to cut costs – never a good start for a deal, and often the beginning of the end.
With a world-class management team and acquisition capital, AccessHeat Inc. is a uniquely positioned consolidation consortium ready to invest in your tech company. As a tech consolidation firm, we look for organizations that are working to push the limits and move into a space of exponential growth through the blending and reorganization of existing operations of the same business type. Our proven methodology focuses on producing financially robust outcomes for all parties involved in the consolidation process. Business owners who are looking for a profitable handoff and equitable transfer of ownership find peace of mind with our consultative methodology, knowing that the business they spent generations tirelessly building from the ground up is being moved to experienced and capable hands. Our strategic investment strategy makes us different than Private Equity Firms or Venture Capital Firms. We work to restructure and optimize all the components of your business that offer an opportunity for increased profitability various synergies.
