Intelligent M&A Book: 2nd Edition

It is certainly not necessary to read the book first to understand and contribute to this blog.  But for those interested in reading it, the full title is:  Intelligent M&A:  Navigating the Mergers and Acquisitions Minefield.  Authors are Scott Moeller and Chris Brady.  The ISBN is 978-1118764237.  It is a hardcover book published by Wiley, and their website has complete information about the book including a table of contents.  It is available from Amazon or any bookstore.  On-line, you can follow this link to purchase it.  It is also available electronically and in Kindle format.

By-the-way, Chris had over 16 years in the Royal Navy in the itelligence area and then moved into business before becoming an academic;  I was in investment banking and finance for almost 25 years and more than a dozen years in academia, including as founder and director of the leading global business school M&A research centre.  Together, we have over 70 years of practical business experience, but including the contributions of others, it is many, many times that.

The book itself covers the following:

Use business intelligence techniques to be more successful when acquiring firms.

Strategies for integrating two companies after they merge.

Identifying success when combining companies through mergers or acquisitions.

It was the first book (and now updated with this second edition) and we believe this is the first website / blog that look at the full process of a merger or acquisition to identify where business intelligence can improve those odds of a favorable outcome.  Using techniques developed by governmental intelligence services and honed by savvy business leaders over the two huge merger waves of the past decade, the book uses a wide range of actual case studies, quotations and anecdotes to demonstrate how to build success into every phase of the deal.  Not just large global corporate mergers, but also small company acquisitions, public sector mergers, and private deals are discussed.  The following are areas discussed in the book and hopefully will be discussed on this blog over time:

• Design the best acquisition process
• Control your advisors and other ‘outsiders’
• Identify the targets that really do fit your strategy
• Defend against unsolicited hostile bids
• Use intelligence techniques to conduct due diligence
• Value, price, and finance each deal to your advantage
• Develop the best negotiation and bid strategy
• Focus from the start on post-deal integration
• Make acquisition skills one of your company’s core competency

Covering current trends in the market and anticipating changes yet to take hold, the book includes sections about the best alternatives to merging or acquiring, differences between public and private deals, when and how to use outside ‘experts’ most effectively, the increasing importance of culture and communication in planning successful deals, and the important role of arbitrageurs, private equity firms and hedge funds.  Again, we hope that this will stimulate some discussion here.

Intelligent M&A, 1st Edition

In April 2007, Wiley published the first edition of our book (ISBN is 978-0-470-05812-1).  It is still available in print and on Amazon, although we suggest that readers should prefer the 2nd edition as the entire book has been revised to the new economic and business environment post the global recession that started in 2007/8.  Since that time, the M&A market has seen major changes in volume and size, industry activity, advisors (with many, including Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns disappearing completely), regulation and the strength of regulators, and the rise of new trends such as cross-border activity.  The new edition is also updated with recent case studies.

One topic from the first edition of  the book has now been developed, in 2009, into an entire book:  Surviving M&A:  Make the most of your company being acquired. That book is a discussion of how managers and other employees can position themselves to best survive a merger.  I think this is a particularly interesting topic and there is a separate blog entitled ‘Surviving Mergers‘.