CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

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The Five Rules of Successful Acquisitions

THE MERGER BOOM OF THE LAST few years is not based on business reasons. It is financial manipulation, pure and simple. But an acquisition must make business sense, or it does not work even as a financial move. It leads to both business and financial failure.

There are five simple rules for successful acquisitions, and they have been followed by all successful acquirers since the days of J. P. Morgan a century ago.

  1. An acquisition will succeed only if the acquiring company thinks through what it can contribute to the business it is buying, not what the acquired company will contribute ...

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