I wanted to share our latest podcast, an interview with Ian Wakeford of the London Stock Exchange Group. LSEG is a serial acquirer of businesses that operate in the ‘weeds’ of the financial services sector, providing technology based solutions for existing challenges, innovating around product set across the capital markets and developing a truly global reach and capability for investors. LSEG has always been acquisitive! Despite a few missteps in […]
This week our podcast is all about an interesting convergence between: future strategy in the fossil future sector which has a very limited long term future but continues to make great returns for its shareholders; the challenge of current and future employees and how this might have an impact on employment strategy going forward; and lastly the role of government in determining the future. https://theagilegorilla-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/theagilegorilla.com/podcast/2023/10/6/13-the-mother-of-all-disruptions?format=amp
Afternoon all, this week Abhay Pande, David Boyd and I talk about some recommended ‘light’ reading for any aspiring transformation director, CEO, or entrepreneur engaging in the Mergers & Acquisition world. We cover everything from applied strategy to behavioural economics and the challenge of change. Have a read, let us know what you’d include on your list, and give us your thoughts. https://theagilegorilla.com/podcast/2023/7/20/11-recommended-reading
This week we talk about the wave of forced mergers in the US. Paul Siegenthaler, Abhay Pande and I talk about the drivers for the current transactions, what are the implications from an integration perspective, and what the future holds. As ever, we’d love to hear from you. Please let us know your thoughts, comments and ideas. https://theagilegorilla.com/podcast/2023/5/19/8-buying-out-the-banks
The latest podcast in the Agile Gorilla Collective series. This week Abhay, David and I talk about the dynamics of Deepmind and Google Brain coming together, what the key challenges for Demis Hassabis and Jeff Dean are in terms of leadership and change management, the competitor landscape and the potential pace of change required, It is a fascinating transaction, not only because of the sudden awareness through ChatGPT of the […]
The latest in our series of Agile Gorilla Collective podcasts. This time we talk about the extraordinary phenomenon of Broadcom, global software business which is hitting the headlines with a bid for VMWare. We talk about Hock Tan, the Malaysian American CEO and founder, his style of leadership and approach to acquisition and integration, the combination of a Warren Buffet and PE type approach to doing deals, and the future […]
Has the idea of growth through M&A finally been proven to be fundamentally bust or can we start to differentiate between those that are likely to fail and those that might succeed? Are there indicators which you might look for to identify potential success? I’ve been thinking about what might feature in those indicators….here’s my list: Personal track record of complex transformation (ideally in remedial situations) within the leadership and […]
At the risk of sounding trite, the opportunities for successful acquirers have never been as great as they are now nor the risks higher! The market generally views with suspicion those who would target growth through deals as their primary vehicle M&A disasters, but for those who do it well, the leverage of the low cost of capital, reasonable valuations and potential for disruption in industries which have been spoilt […]
We are living in a period of reversals….for most of our lives, decisions have been made in the West and implemented (with mixed success) in the East. From outsourcing shared services to the Philippines and South Asia, to banks developing global platforms by buying local and regional businesses across Asia, to the great manufacturing shift to China and more recently to Vietnam, the emphasis on delivery has the remit of […]
Think about a recent acquisition that you were involved in. Having accessed the business in the post completion period, which of the following assets proved to be more valuable: The physical assets: Intellectual property, technology platform, operating infrastructure, plant and equipment, inventory / working capital, cash in the bank. The employee assets: innovators, R&D experts, operations managers, leaders, customer facing relationship managers, sales people, ‘historians’ (those who understood the context […]
I’ve posted previously on the futility of the classic organisational structure analysis when it comes to M&A (you’ll find the link here). A good friend and ex-colleague came back to me with an excellent challenge…easy to poke holes in it but what’s the solution? Let me respond and come up with some ideas on how to do this more effectively given the constraints of an M&A process pre announcement, notably: Limited access to […]
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the conditions you might look for as a lead indicator for potentially successful M&A processes (find the article here). This week, the case for the serial acquirer was once again knocked back as the two of the leading proponents for an inorganic growth strategy failed. In SunEdison’s case, filing for bankruptcy whilst for Valeant, the wholesale change of the board and I would […]
…no matter how much you vigorously combine them, they eventually separate out again. It’s a nice analogy but why? Why is it so hard to successfully translate strategy into integration? Why do those who lead / create strategy well struggle so badly with integration? Why does a set of activities which by their very nature are iterate, continue to be linear? One of the joys of my work is that I meet […]
Anyone you know who hasn’t been through a deal of some kind? I thought not…even those who work in the public sector will have had some strategic transformation thrust upon them. It’s a part of corporate life, whether you’re a senior stakeholder or an entry level employee.…and what has their experience been like, do you think? Positive…’I’ve learned from the experience and my career has been enhanced’ Neutral…’It’s only affected […]
What happens when the deal you’ve been banking on is pulled “Investors should worry whenever bosses and bankers succumb to deal-fever, since so many corporate transactions end up destroying value. The latest crop has some of the tell-tale signs of danger: high ego, high price and over-confidence.” You’re probably not surprised to hear that this is a quote from the FT…as relevant today as it was when it was written, […]
According to Dealogic, 102 outbound Chinese transactions have been announced to date worth USD 81.6 billion up from USD 11.2 billion for the same period last year… Some of them have been truly momentous: Haier’s intention to acquire the GE Appliance business, a business which is steeped in American corporate history. ChemChina’s bid for Syngenta, the sheer size of which is eye popping at USD 48 billion. HNA Group’s bid for […]
One of my reading obsessions for the last couple of years has been the subject of behavioural economics. A key finding (from the psychology arm of the science) is the concept of ‘unconscious bias’; the idea that despite the contention from a rational perspective that we are not biased, the evidence suggests that we are influenced by colour and race in our decisions and inclinations. There’s a good short video on […]
The announcement this morning of the acquisition of Baxalta by Shire suggests that the wave of pharmaceutical acquisitions is still ongoing. The current market fluctuation may help others to continue their quest in what is probably the largest sector consolidation we’ve seen in a decade or two. The Shire share price reaction is also interesting…a fall of 8% suggests that investors are increasingly concerned that for this specific deal, and […]
A few years ago I was involved in the merger of two UK law firms, one with a focus on London as its main operating base, the other more regional in its operations. One of the conditions for the deal to go through was 100% approval by the partners. In terms of numbers, we were talking about 124 people. Imagine having a hurdle in a project where, before any implementation […]
The final instalment of this series of blogs, from the perspective of a mythical CEO of a family owned business being acquired by a multinational corporate. It is based on my experience of deals across Asia and is not specific to one particular transaction. If you’d like to read the previous parts (which may make sense as they’re written in chronological order), you can access them here – Due diligence, […]
Inarticulate ramblings of a management consultant 