Mergers and acquisitions were all-time high in 2021 as announced transactions hit the $5.9 trillion figure. Businesses merged or were acquired by bigger entities to battle the post-Covid era.
Though mergers and acquisitions are quite time-consuming and costly, they help consolidated business entities achieve their goals and ensure constant growth. Despite this, about 10% of large-scale M&A deals get canceled every year.
Why do M&A transactions fail? How can businesses boost the chances of successful M&A deals? Below are our top 10 tips for successful mergers and acquisitions.
Top 10 tips for successful mergers and acquisitions
1. Understand the possible M&A ahead
Organizations need to realize that mergers and acquisitions form new business entities. When two businesses consolidate or merge, they form a new culture and create a fresh set of work ethics. It is important to consider an M&A transaction as a new startup and think accordingly.
2. Communicate transparently with stakeholders and investors
It goes without saying that stakeholders and investors are key figures in M&As, and regularly communicating with them is essential for management. The organizations must inform them about the costs, possibilities, opportunities, and possible threats attached to the transaction.
Getting everyone on the same page and posting regular updates can be difficult and unsafe without a secure platform. In such cases, using virtual data rooms can help the management ensure better, faster, and safer communication.
3. Create a safe environment for collaboration
During an M&A transaction, both parties are at risk of data theft. It is especially high during due diligence, when businesses share their trade secrets, confidential documents, financial statements, marketing strategies, etc.
Security concerns are real from both sides, so creating a safe environment is necessary. That’s why companies turn to dataroom software for mergers or acquisitions. Virtual data room software is a threat-free digital platform for online data sharing and communication.
4. Arrange regular meetings
Arranging regular meetings with the concerned individuals is necessary during the M&As. Meeting at least once a week helps both sides discuss progress, evaluate new information, make changes required to cope with the latest information and events, and decide on the next steps.
Physical meetings can be very challenging and expensive for both sides. Using online data room software can help you arrange smooth, fast, and highly secure online meetings. Data room software allows you to plan, execute, and record meetings and distribute meeting minutes instantly.
5. Make data access and sharing faster and safer
One of the most important things to do in M&As is to ensure that interested parties have easy and fast access to due diligence data. The corporate sector has been regularly using data room services for fast and safe data management in M&As for almost two decades now.
An electronic data room is a cloud-based data storage platform easily accessible from any part of the world. Thanks to it, representatives from both sides can easily access documents whenever needed.
6. Delegate tasks efficiently
Finding the right teams and individuals and assigning them tasks according to their expertise is vital for a successful M&A transaction. As a leader, you cannot take on every task; delegate responsibilities to the right individuals, ask them to update you regularly and answer their queries timely. You can use virtual data rooms to assign and track tasks delegated to your subordinates.
7. Streamline due diligence
Due diligence is a core element of any merger or acquisition deal. Streamlining this process increases the chances of a successful outcome but also shortens the process.
For this purpose, you can use different tools for data sharing, task management, and communication. Alternatively, you can rely on modern-day virtual data room providers to give you all services in one solution.
8. Keep things transparent
Transparency is vital to building trust among your investors, stakeholders, and of course, the company you are going to acquire or merge in. All interested parties should get regular updates on everything.
Many high-end data room vendors allow you to generate audit reports giving detailed information on all activities in the VDR. You can share these reports with everyone involved in the deal and keep them updated.
9. Gather and integrate regular feedback
In addition to tracking your teams and their progress, ask them to give regular feedback on how things are going and what can be done to improve the process. Resolve any possible issues and integrate that feedback to improve the quality of the process.
10. Minimize M&A costs
As mentioned earlier, M&As can be costly transactions if you don’t manage them well. One of the best ways to reduce M&A costs is to undertake the process in virtual data rooms. VDRs can cut paper and printing costs, traveling expenses, and meeting costs by offering a centralized data storage and management system for a fixed fee.
In this regard, some of the best data room providers for M&As include iDeals, DealRoom, Firmex, Merrill, and Caplinked. Consider conducting your independent data room comparison of these providers, their pricing plans, and technical capabilities to decide on a solution that works best for you!
Final words
You can maximize the chances of a successful M&A transaction by:
- Involving stakeholders and investors in decision making
- Keeping things transparent
- Streamlining data sharing and communication via virtual data rooms
- Tracking the progress regularly and making necessary adjustments
- Developing a workable timeline for the process
Hopefully, following these tips and others listed in the article above will help you succeed with your next merger and acquisition transaction.
