Ebook: Why deals fail: and how to rescue them: M&A lessons for business success

The combined value of all M&A deals from 1980 to the end of 2015 was almost $65 trillion—bigger than the current annual world economy value outside the US. In that same period, almost 900,000 deals were announced. Many were questionable, as Why Deals Fail shows. With companies expected to continue to merge in record numbers, it is time to learn some critical lessons from those deals.
In 2014 the government of the UK—one of the most open markets globally for M&A—commissioned Cass Business School's Mergers and Acquisitions Research Centre, headed by Scott Moeller, to investigate whether M&A has a negative or positive impact on the country's economy. Their findings: M&A deals do generate short-term benefits for the economy, especially because some large deals were spectacularly successful. However, over the longer term, the results are less clear-cut. Despite those highly successful tie-ups that drove the economic results to an overall...