Vol. 6 No. 3, March 2014
The Leadership Forum is a panel of the most prominent thought leaders in the profession. Each month we ask them to respond to a question dealing with CPA firm management and leadership.
This month's question is:
Do mergers really work? What percent of mergers are successful in terms of satisfaction to both the buyer and the seller (sellers got their exit strategy and clients were satisfied; buyers were glad they did the deal and benefitted by increasing revenues and profits, retaining good clients and good staff, etc.)?
Consultants and Other Prominent Observers
| Joseph Tarasco | Accountants Advisory Group | www.accountantsadvisory.com [email protected] |
| Mergers can be risky, difficult, time and energy consuming, and expensive. However, if accomplished for the right reasons, they can have tremendous benefits and be mutually beneficial to the parties involved. The chances that a merger will be successful are increased significantly if the combination results in the following:
There are many other considerations including price, retirement payout, partner compensation, etc. |
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| August Aquila | AQUILA Global Advisors, LLC | www.aquilaadvisors.com [email protected] |
| ...My experience has been that if the two firms take time to understand each other, what the future looks like for them when they combine, they it can be a successful merger. Not every partner or staff member will be satisfied... More | ||
| Gary Boomer | Boomer Consulting, Inc. | www.boomer.com [email protected] |
| ...there are winners and losers in many transactions. Some people do not want to grow and have access to more resources and larger clients. It depends who you talk to on either the buyer or sellers side. There are generally winners and loser on both sides... More | ||
| William Carlino | Transition Advisors | www.transitionadvisors.com [email protected] |
| The short answer is "yes." Mergers work but like anything else, they have to have been built on a successful foundation - that includes good chemistry and like-minded culture between the two parties,... More | ||
| Ric Payne | Principa | www.principa.net [email protected] |
In my experience six conditions need to be in place for a merger (or an acquisition) to succeed for the stakeholders who end up on the buyer's side to be happy. They are:
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| Rich Rinehart | Grant Partners, LLC | [email protected] |
| First let me say that there are no mergers, only acquisitions. For the acquiring firm to say it was successful the acquired firm must accept that their culture will be integrated into the new firm... More | ||
| Marc Rosenberg | The Rosenberg Associates | www.rosenbergassoc.com [email protected] |
| In order for the answer to this question to have any relevancy, it must be given with two perspectives in mind. IS "MERGER SUCCESS" BEING MEASURED PROPERLY? The correct way to measure merger success is whether the goals of the merger partners were achieved. Did the sellers get their exit strategy? Did the vast majority of the seller's clients and personnel stay with the buyer?... More |
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| Joel Sinkin | Transition Advisors, LLC | www.transitionadvisors.com [email protected] |
| ...There are keys to ensure your merger is successful they include but are far from limited to:
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| Rick Telberg | CPA Trendlines | www.cpatrendlines.com [email protected] |
| ...Objectively speaking, buyers are generally satisfied, if only because the evidence shows buyers tend to buy again and again. Other than serial sellers (who launch practices to flip them), sellers only sell once, and if it's an exit strategy they've dealt with much of the emotional letting-go by the time they actually go... More | ||
| Jennifer Wilson | ConvergenceCoaching LLC | www.convergencecoaching.com [email protected] |
| My friend Allan Koltin likes to say, "The best merger you'll ever do is the one you DON'T do" because it's not a fit. So, mergers that are thoroughly vetted and the cultures mesh, the reasons for merging are aligned and the proper planning and due diligence has been done... More | ||