Archive for February, 2010
More advice on avoiding redundancy…
On Wednesday, 24 February 2010, the Times of London published an opinion piece entitled: ‘How to ward off redundancy in chaos of M&A’.
This was an article based on the Surviving M&A book, and summarising the key points for employees who are faced with a takeover of their company. Yet again, it is in response to the proposed firings taking place at Cadbury following the announcement that it had agreed to the acquisition by Kraft. This particular article does discuss how it might even be possible to further your career in light of such an acquistion.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Can you trust an acquiring company’s promises?
Would anyone answer the above question ‘yes’ after yesterday’s news? Kraft, less than three weeks after agreeing to the purchase of British chocolate company Cadbury, reversed it’s promise to keep Cadbury’s Bristol plant (with over 400 employees) open. You can see the news story here on Sky News.
As the Cadbury union leaders said, this appeared to have been a deliberate attempt by Kraft to mislead the employees of that plant (and indeed the whole company) in order to gain further support for it’s hostile bid. It also sends, in the words of the union, ‘the worst possible message’ to the other Cadbury employees in the UK and Ireland. Even the British Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, had to say “This will confirm the fears of those who felt the takeover would result in job losses.” He went on to say that “It is for the company [Kraft] now to prove the worth of their other statements about investing in the UK.”
There’s a clear message here for Cadbury employees and certainly for the employees of any company acquired by Kraft in the future. But how about employees of other companies that are acquired?
I do think that it is very likely in any M&A deal that there will be changes to the post-acquisition plans once the deal is signed and even moreso after the deal is closed. This is more likely when the deal has been hostile (as was the case in with Kraft and Cadbury), as the acquirer will not have been able to spend time with the target’s current management discussing the company and it’s existing plans. Much will remain unknown until after the deal actually closes and the two companies try to start operating as one.
It is therefore why I have noted in my book Surviving M&A that any employee should question any statement made by management during this period. This is not to say that management will be trying to deliberately mislead employees; more likely is that management JUST DIDN’T KNOW. But all the more reason to be prepared fully for the possibility of redundancy and to do whatever you can to better your chances of being retained if your entire division isn’t axed after the deal.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )‘Management Today’ Article on Surviving an Acquisition
In light of the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft, I was asked to write an article in Management Today entitled ‘MT Expert’s Ten Top Tips: Surviving M&A’. Please do see the article, which is based on some of the findings from the book: Surviving M&A: Make the most of your company being acquired.
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Surviving M&A 