Articles on surviving an acquisition
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 )‘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.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )(More than) Ten Ways to Survive a Merger
The decision by Cadbury to accept Kraft’s offer has certainly stimulated interest in what’s happening to the employees there. BNET (the on-line business service from CBS) has published an article two days ago that has picked up on the advice offered by the Surviving M&A book and as also noted by the Financial Times blog a few days ago.
I especially appreciated the extra comments under that article that you can see if you scroll down, that do, I must admit, follow some of the further advice provided in the Surviving M&A book. Nice to see as well that another BNET correspondent has said that the deal probably won’t be successful in the long term anyway (as up to 80% of all HOSTILE deals fail, he notes). This is a clear message to Cadbury employees to look for ways to exit the firm before the turmoil sets in. It’s actually a clear message to any employee in any company being acquired.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Surviving the Kraft acquisition of Cadbury
Very nice to see that the Financial Times has yesterday reiterated the advice from this blog and Surviving M&A book about how to survive an acquisition. The news is now that Cadbury WILL now be bought by Kraft, as the revised price of the offer has now reached a level where the board of Cadbury can no longer argue that the shareholders benefit.
But the employees of Cadbury should certainly be worried. On average, 10% of the workforce in an acquisition will be fired. Sometimes it’s as high as one-third! This, despite the assurances of Kraft that they will even keep open the planned plant closures in England that had previously been announced by Cadbury.
It was nice to see that Stefan Stern of the Financial Times included in his blog the ‘top ten tips’ for those Cadbury managers. You can see his blog here. The advice actually applies to ALL Cadbury employees…
As noted in one of the comments to that blog and also as I’ve written in my book, first employees should determine whether they actually want to stay, because now may be an excellent time to leave.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Book Review: ‘Surviving Mergers’ from The Times, 2 September 2009
There was an excellent summary and review by Emily Ford of the Surviving Mergers: Make the most of your company being acquired book in the 2 September 2009 issue of The Times and also available on-line here. She entitled her review ‘In a merger, survival can depend on you’, which is certainly true, yet often not understood by most employees. Clearly, as the M&A markets are showing strong signs of revival, this is even more important even than when the book was published less than two months ago.
Emily wrote in the article that ‘The spectre of a merger is enough to send a chill down the spines of most employees — with good reason. Mergers always carry a risk of redundancies: on average, 10 to 15 per cent of employees across both organisations lose their jobs in a merger, sometimes as many as a third. Even those who keep their jobs are likely to be fearful of the change to the status quo.’
She goes on to write:
‘In a book just published, Surviving M&A: Make the Most of Your Company Being Acquired by Scott Moeller, director of the M&A Research Centre at Cass Business School in London, explains how to improve your chances of keeping your job, based on 350 interviews with employees who have been through M&A deals. “The first question you need to ask yourself is: ‘Do you want to stay?’ ” Professor Moeller said. “A merger might be the best time to leave.”’
The article includes 10 of the key pieces of advice to reduce your ‘risk of being made redundant in a merger’ if you do decide that you want to fight for your job. It also notes that ‘Workers in Britain, America and the Netherlands are more at risk of being made redundant than those in Germany, France and Japan, thanks to employment legislation differences.’ But, as she adds at the end,
‘Despite your best intentions, things might not work out. If you plan to stay at your company, go to a few interviews anyway to test the market and work out your value. “Mergers are unpredictable. Remaining flexible will give you more options,” Professor Moeller said.’
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )‘When it comes to mergers, just look after No 1’ (Times)
An article in the Times this morning (19 August 2009) noted from the Surviving Mergers book the importance of making sure that you don’t depend too much on your boss to take care of you when your company is acquired or even if your firm is the larger one taking over another company. Dominic Walsh wrote ‘A new book by Scott Moeller, a former banker at Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, advises employees on the best way to hang on to their jobs in the event of a merger or takeover by a rival,’ and then continued with:
In assessing the economics of a deal, the shareholders and other analysts will look to see that the gains from the merger will exceed the costs. But perhaps the most telling piece of advice in his book — Surviving M&A: Make the Most of Your Company Being Acquired — is: “Don’t rely on your boss — in a merger everyone looks out for themselves.”
Given that the book is based on 350 interviews with people who have been through M&A deals, we can assume that a number felt that they had been stabbed in the back by their bosses.
But what about bosses nursing similar wounds? “It is fair to say we interviewed bosses who felt that after the deal, it was all about looking out for No 1,” Moeller admits.
This is certainly an important area that was highlighted frequently in our interviews. It’s not that your boss doesn’t have your best interests in mind or that (s)he doesn’t care, but often middle managers and even very senior ones do not really know what is going to happen, they may have been told they are secure themselves but then the situation changes unexpectedly (mergers ARE very uncertain even after closing), they are themselves going through the emotional roller-coaster caused by the deal, and, of course, will be most concerned about whether they have a job first.
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Surviving M&A 