Publications

By Towers Perrin EXECUTIVE SUMMARY “You can buy the best company in the world and kill it in the first 30 days.” — Senior HR Executive With mergers and acquisitions reemerging as a key business strategy for many organizations, the billion-dollar question is whether the next wave of deals will prove more successful than many of those struck … Read more

By Ravi Chanmugam, Pat Anslinger and Milyae Park – Accenture Twenty years ago, few companies made acquisitions a key element of strategy; acquisitions were often an afterthought or episodic. Today, the world has changed. Some companies do 25 deals a year, and others look to achieve 50 percent or more of their growth from acquisitions. A recent Accenture/Economist Intelligence Unit global survey … Read more

By Jeffery S. Perry, Thomas J. Herd – A.T. Kearney “The art of doing due diligence is being lost. Buyers aren’t analyzing the operations and books of prospective acquisitions with nearly enough vigor” (Fortune, 3 September 2001). For the past few years, sad stories of gigantic merger failures have been told and retold in the media – for example, the … Read more

By John O. Nigh, Louis J. Bevilacqua – Towers Perrin, Wickersham & Taft M&A due diligence has always been a good business practice. But in the wake of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, it is now essential. In an effort to restore public confidence in the capital markets and the accounting profession, which were shaken by the collapse of a number … Read more

By Michael May, Patricia Anslinger and Justin Jenk – Accenture Checking too quickly and focusing too narrowly can be a recipe for disaster. Successful acquirers take a different approach: the disciplined prioritization and organization of a number of fundamental—but often neglected principles. Call it strategic due diligence. Hewlett-Packard hadn’t been much of a favorite with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company‘s A.M. Sacconaghi.  For … Read more

By Michael J. Shelton – McKinsey & Company An integration manager can help make a merger more successful, but only if the top team knows how to choose and install one. For some years now, CEOs have turned to integration managers—usually mid- to upper-level executives relieved of their customary duties for six months to a year—to help lead … Read more

By Richard A. Chang, Gary A. Curtis, Justin Jenk – Accenture In spite of a softer economy and a changing business landscape, mergers and acquisitions remain a vital part of many companies’ overall strategies to attain and maintain competitive advantage. But even in the best of economic times, merger and acquisition (M&A) execution is a challenge. Statistics have shown that … Read more