Book Review: The Synergy Solution

The Synergy Resolution: How Corporations Win the Mergers and Acquisitions Recreation. 2022. Mark L. Sirower and Jeffery M. Weirens. Harvard Enterprise Evaluate Press.

“Poorly deliberate and executed acquisitions have virtually actually destroyed way more funding worth than managerial acts of fraud.”

Traders who keep in mind huge fraud-related wealth destroyers resembling Enron, HealthSouth, and Parmalat would possibly wonder if this assertion from The Synergy Resolution: How Corporations Win the Mergers and Acquisitions Recreation is right. Authors Mark L. Sirower and Jeffrey M. Weirens help their declare, nevertheless, with examples resembling insurer Conseco’s ill-fated, all-stock 1998 acquisition of subprime cellular residence lender Inexperienced Tree Monetary. A yr after the deal was introduced, Conseco inventory was down 50%. 4 years later, the corporate filed what was then the third-largest-ever US chapter petition.

Sirower and Weirens, who respectively head Deloitte’s US mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and world monetary advisory companies, additionally present examples of vastly extra profitable offers. As an example, Avis Funds Group’s inventory rose by 105% within the 12 months following the corporate’s announcement that it could purchase car-sharing chief Zipcar in an all-cash transaction.

For buyers, the problem is the right way to predict the M&A winners and losers. The authors reveal that one essential clue is the inventory market’s preliminary response to the deal announcement. Within the Conseco / Inexperienced Tree case, the acquirer’s inventory worth instantly fell by 20%, whereas that of Avis Funds Group’s shares rose by 9% on the Zipcar information.

These are usually not remoted examples. Amongst its intensive empirical findings, The Synergy Resolution reviews that in its pattern of 1,267 M&A offers within the 1995–2018 interval, one-year returns on acquirer shares with initially optimistic returns averaged +8.4%, in contrast with –9.1% for these with initially detrimental returns. Of the acquirer shares that rose on the deal announcement, 65.2% posted features for the next 12 months, whereas 57.1% of those who fell on the announcement have been nonetheless down a yr later.

Briefly, the market tends to acknowledge from the get-go whether or not a newly introduced deal will finally add or subtract worth for the acquirer’s shareholders (and for the acquiree’s shareholders, if the deal foreign money is inventory). What accounts for this prescience? Sirower and Weirens make use of case research to current their argument: A acquire is extra doubtless when the acquirer’s administration presents an in depth breakdown of believable, anticipated synergies adequate to justify the premium being paid for the goal’s inventory (or estimated worth, within the case of a division being acquired from one other firm).

Conseco / Inexperienced Tree exemplified the counter case. Conseco had beforehand generated the S&P 1500’s highest complete shareholder return over a 15-year interval by rolling up 40 regional insurance coverage firms. Administration had mastered the method of instantly lowering back-office prices, making the synergies extremely predictable. In distinction, Conseco vaguely described its diversification into shopper lending with Inexperienced Tree as “strategic” and never value based mostly. Traders didn’t purchase the cross-selling story, and the preliminary 20 p.c worth drop proved to be prologue. (The deal’s heady 83% premium didn’t assist.) Conseco’s inventory worth fell by half inside a yr and the corporate went bankrupt just a few years later.

Because the phrase “firms” within the subtitle suggests, this guide’s major target market consists of company managers and administrators moderately than securities analysts. However, the authors provide immensely precious instruction on assessing from the skin whether or not a given M&A transaction is more likely to create or destroy wealth. To make that dedication, The Synergy Resolution recommends supplementing discounted money movement evaluation with financial worth added strategies. Sirower and Weirens present the right way to look via the acquiree’s GAAP earnings, that are generally used to justify the premium through multiples paid in comparable transactions. The earnings per share generated for monetary reporting functions would possibly, for instance, be overstated due to nonrecurring objects or headed for a decline due to upcoming collective bargaining settlement renewals—a problem at present rising in significance in view of rising inflation. Funding organizations with adequate sources also can conduct the form of business due diligence the authors prescribe for acquirers, together with surveys of contributors within the merged firm’s key markets.

In the middle of offering these pointers, Sirower and Weirens topic conventional analyses of M&A transactions to well-warranted scrutiny. Opposite to the idea that acquisitions are sound provided that they’re accretive to earnings, the authors be aware the low correlation between accretion / dilution and market response. A lot scholarly analysis asks whether or not acquisitions work finest when they’re in “associated” or “unrelated” companies or one thing in between the 2. Many goal firms, nevertheless, interact in quite a lot of companies and consequently examine multiple field. Sirower and Weirens additionally warning towards specializing in the expansion charge of the merging firms’ addressable market. The expansion charge of the market that’s serviceable by their mixed operations may be decrease.

Whilst they catalogue the issues in acquisitions which are both poorly conceived or pushed by CEO egos, Sirower and Weirens stress their perception within the virtues of correctly deliberate and executed M&As. Traders can enhance their probabilities of separating the wheat from the chaff by using some less-familiar instruments they describe, resembling shareholder worth in danger and the meet the premium line. Useful as properly is the guide’s calculation of the comparative efficiency of all-stock, all-cash, and mixture offers. Contemplating the stakes, buyers ought to actually reap the benefits of the experience and insights that inform The Synergy Resolution.

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