Mergers, Acquisitions, and Corporate Restructurings, Fourth Edition

Preface

The field of mergers and acquisitions continues to experience dramatic growth. Record-breaking megamergers have become commonplace across the globe. While megamergers used to be mainly an American phenomenon, the recently completed fifth merger wave became a truly international merger period. Starting in the 1990s and continuing into the next decade, some of the largest mergers and acquisitions (M&As) took place in Europe. This was underscored by the fact that the largest deal of all time was a hostile acquisition of a German company by a British firm.

While deal volume declined when the fifth wave ended it, the pace of M&A picked up again shortly thereafter. By the mid-2000s the nature of the M&A business changed even more. It became even more global with the emergence of the emerging market acquirer. In addition, deregulation combined with economic growth has greatly increased deal volume in Asia. M&A also grew markedly in Latin and South America.

Over the past quarter of a century we have noticed that merger waves have become longer and more frequent. The time periods between waves also has shrunken. When these trends are combined with the fact that M&A has rapidly spread across the modern world, we see that the field is increasingly becoming an ever more important part of the worlds of corporate finance and corporate strategy.

As the field has evolved we see that many of the methods that applied to deals of prior years are still relevant, but new rules are also in effect. ...