Make the Deal

Negotiating Mergers and Acquisitions

By: Christopher S. Harrison

Narrated by: Daniel Henning

Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

Make the Deal is a direct and accessible guide to striking a powerful M&A deal. Merging business, finance, and law, this insightful examination of M&A strategy is designed to help you understand M&A negotiations and the ways in which the final outcome affects your financial future. You'll gain insight into real-world negotiations and the delicate balancing act that occurs as each party attempts to maximize value and minimize risk, and learn the potential pitfalls that can occur.

As a topic of study, M&A is constantly evolving; in practice, it changes at the speed of light. Staying ahead of the market is the single most critical element of making the best deal, and the strategy that worked for one deal most likely won't work for the next. Instead of simply providing a list of strategies that have worked in the past, this book shows you why they worked, so you can tailor your strategy specifically to your next deal.

• Learn how M&A contract terms affect economic outcomes
• Examine the techniques and mechanics of today's acquisition agreements
• Develop a legal framework that supports your business strategy
• Follow the ups and downs that arise in real-world cases

©2016 The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (P)2019 Gildan Media

Devilishly detailed. For the dedicated student.

This is down-in-the-engine-room, dense, full-text, nitty gritty, point for point stuff. Sharpen up those pencils, toss back some ibuprofen, and make ready! I'm not an investment banker, and I've never done one of these. I do teach business law, making me a sort of honorary member of the audience. I welcome a book like this, and I sort of get "in the zone" and just let it waft across my brain. I draw charts, outlines of it in my mind. Point-exception-carve-out ....

It can seem unreal, or like a game, or lawyer-tricks (as can a common consumer contract), but these provisions ARE substantive, and can have huge differences in parceling risk and costs and value. Anyone can resent this until it makes a vital difference in one's own deal. One need only think of the unforeseen consequences of the first version of the 2008 Bear Stearns acquisition to shudder at what probably befell the person who drafted it. A surprise shift in time and money and dynamics can spin into something quite scary. One benefits from piling through this until it becomes second-nature enough that one can see around the next 2 or 3 corners ahead.

There is no way the mildly curious can keep from wilting here. Doubtless many a young banker has burned the midnight oil over this stuff, all the while promising the self, and the doubting companions and pets, all this sacrifice will come to something. And often, it does.