Why Deals Fail and How to Rescue Them: M&A Lessons for Business Success

Mergers and acquisitions are part of the fabric of business and economic life: they help drive growth in companies of all sizes. Most executives will at some point in their careers experience a takeover, as buyer, seller or intermediary. Yet, despite M&A's obvious attractions, deals often fall short of expectations and, in extreme cases, can go disastrously wrong, with devastating consequences.

From their unique perspective as practitioners and researchers, Faelten, Driessen and Moeller have seen it all when it comes to M&A, and they've used this experience to develop their Three Big Mistakes of Deal-Making. Using case studies from a wide range of companies, many household names (Diageo, BMW, Microsoft, Kraft, HP and even Manchester United), and for deals ranging from the highly to the less successful to the downright questionable, Why Deals Fail offers both a commentary on the inexorable tendency for companies to merge, for good or ill, and a guide to the benefits and pitfalls of M&A as a growth strategy.

The result is a fascinating insight into why some deals work and why others go awry for anyone interested in how the corporate world works, or contemplating or facing a merger or acquisition themselves.

Anna Faelten is a Corporate Finance advisor at international accountancy firm EY. Anna has many years of M&A experience, advising firms when raising and investing capital with a focus on the Technology, Media and Telecommunications sector. She remains a visiting lecturer at Cass Business School, where she teaches mergers and acquisitions to master s degree students. Her ongoing academic research focuses on M&A but also encompasses general corporate finance, corporate governance, corporate distress, and restructuring and investment in emerging markets.
Michel Driessen is a Senior Partner within the Transaction Advisory Services practice at international accounting firm EY. He has previously held senior executive positions at Accenture, Visa and Rabobank. During his nine years at EY he has worked on and led over 100 multi-billion pound transactions with the world s largest corporates and private equity firms on some of the biggest and most complex cross-border engagements. His focus has been on synergy identification and valuation, post merger integration and divestments/carve-outs. He is an advisory board member of the M&A Research Centre and a Senior Visiting Fellow at Cass Business School.
Scott Moeller is a Professor in the Practice of Finance at Cass Business School where he is also the Director of the M&A Research Centre. He is a former investment banker with both Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, former consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton, and co-author of the best-selling Intelligent M&A: Navigating the mergers and acquisitions minefield (now in its second edition), author of Surviving M&A: Make the most of your company being acquired, and editor of "Finance Essentials: The Practitioners Guide" and "M&A Collection: Themes in Best Practice.""