A Comprehensive Guide to Mergers & Acquisitions: Managing the Critical Success Factors Across Every Stage of the M&A Process

1. The M&A Paradox: Factors of Success and Failure in Mergers and Acquisitions

Why do experienced senior managers fail again and again in mergers and acquisitions (M&A)?¹ For example, in a well-documented case, Daimler had to separate from Chrysler, which it had purchased approximately 10 years before, after continuous losses of billions of dollars. And in another case that was widely covered in newspapers, in October 2007, Patricia Russo, the CEO of the Alcatel-Lucent merger, admitted that after three sequential profit warnings, the results of the merger were lower than expected (The Associated Press, October 31, 2007). In contrast, few companies succeed persistently in M&A, such as Heinz, Unilever, and Electrolux.

1 The term merger refers generally ...