Mergers and acquisitions

Less than a decade after the frantic merger activity of the late 1960s, we are again in the midst of a major wave of corporate acquisitions. In contrast to the 1960s, when acquirers were mainly freewheeling conglomerates, the merger movement in the 1970s includes such long-established giants of U.S. industry as General Electric, Gulf Oil, […]

Congress and regulators must curb combinations that adversely affect the cost and quality of care.

Since September I have been watching uneasily as Kraft has upped the stakes in its takeover bid for Cadbury, Britain’s favourite confectioner. After repeated rebuffals, Cadbury this week dismissed the US food conglomerate’s $16bn offer as “derisory” and set out higher profit targets in an effort to persuade investors that the company would be better […]

As far as I can tell, Yahoo did a lease/sale deal with Microsoft, thereby exiting the growing online search business to focus on the fragmented, super-competitive, online media business. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and her advisors said they could not marshal the capital to fight against the billions in R&D that Microsoft and Google were […]

Skype’s new owners — Silver Lake Partners, Marc Andreessen, and company — are getting a company valued at $2.75 billion (according to former owner eBay) with 405 million users. That’s $6.79 per registered user, and a little over five times Skype’s 2008 revenue of $511 million. Skype grew by 44% in 2008. So did the […]

The financial world set a record in 2015 for mergers and acquisitions. It's too soon to have data on how those deals will work out, but the signs are...

Many high-tech companies looking for hot new products have caught acquisition fever. Smart buyers keep their eye on building the right long-term capabilities, which often means keeping the right people.

An established rental car company acquires a car-sharing start-up and must decide whether to fully integrate it, to leave it as an independent unit, or...

By tapping former employees, companies can get a jump on the all-important integration process.

The "search fund" model is particularly well suited to our demographic moment.

For decades, negotiators have been working out agreements by focusing on interests, not positions. But the messy problem of how to share the gains created...

The key is knowing what your top price is—and having the discipline to stick to it.

And changing how Americans think about the cost of healthy food.

Edward Bennett has done wonders at Astar Enterprises. In the 15 years he's been CEO, the company has more than tripled in size through product line extension...

Even before Google bid $6 billion to buy Groupon, the online coupon startup, earlier this week, the media and businesses alike were trying to make sense of this innovative new promotional tool. Forbes anointed Groupon “the fastest growing company… ever,” and there are stories aplenty about businesses that are besieged by new customers when they […]

Today’s technology can put adjusted present value into the arsenal of every general manager.

Reports of the “eclipse of the public corporation” underestimate its institutional staying power and unique capacity for renewal. In his recent HBR article, Michael C. Jensen, a distinguished scholar of corporate finance and governance, argues for a revolution in the structure of ownership and control in the U.S. economy.1 I share many of his criticisms […]

The first wave of foreign direct investment in China, in the 1980s, mostly took the form of joint ventures. A second wave followed in the 1990s in the form of greenfield wholly foreign-owned enterprises (WFOEs). Now a third wave of foreign direct investment—cross-border mergers and acquisitions—is gaining strength. Consider the forces driving this third wave. […]

It took over a year to for Microsoft and Yahoo to to forge their alliance in the internet search and advertising business (not counting the previous time the new partners were eyeing each other from across the room). Hence you’d expect a powerful combination of assets, structured to deliver value to users and shareholders. Guess […]

It’s a risky decision.