Mergers and Acquisitions – The Relentless Pursuit of Synergy

Colleagues, the Mergers and Acquisitions – The Relentless Pursuit of Synergy program equips you to manage deals that draw a lot of public attention and dispute. Oftentimes, stories look more like fairy tales rather than financial reality. The key idea in any M&A transaction is to create value through a potentially synergistic activity. To this end, it is important to have a clear motive and implementation plan. Of special importance are the correct valuation, proper financing, and actual deal completion. But this is not the end – value mostly accrues from the post-merger integration.  The understanding of the motives of various stakeholders is instrumental in the analysis of the potential creation of value. Skill-based training modules cover: 1) Why M&As? Stakeholders, Framework and Process. Legal and Regulatory Environment. Accounting and Tax Issues an Overview - introduce the framework and process of M&As and discuss the overall environment of these transactions – legal and regulatory issues (especially, antitrust motives), accounting treatment of M&As, and some important tax considerations. We will see how the transaction environment and treatment influence the potential of successful implementation of a transaction and the corresponding value creation, 2) Strategy and M&As. Theories of M&As - revisit some well-known schools of strategic thinking and frameworks of strategy formulation and implementation. Our objective is to understand strategic motives behind M&A transactions. Finally, we study the actual deal mechanics and ways to overcome incumbent shareholder resistance (the free-rider problem), 3) Valuation of M&As - discuss and compare alternative approaches to valuation, paying special attention to free cash flow (FCF) valuation. Analyze major value drivers – profitability, growth, cost of capital etc. and derive general valuation formulas for special cases of no growth, constant and supernormal growth. Then we apply the formulas to analyze value gains/losses in M&A transactions on examples, and 4) M&A Financing. LBOs and MBOs - discuss both facts and myths about junk bonds. Then we consider LBO and MBO transactions. First, we analyze how a company may be taken private through heavy borrowing and further gradual debt repayment. We illustrate the mechanics of an LBO/MBO transaction in a detailed example. Finally, comments on a famous LBO case – RJR Nabisco – are provided.

Enroll today (teams & execs welcome): https://tinyurl.com/t8dp2epc 

Much career success, Lawrence E. Wilson - Financial Certification Academy