Vertiefungsphase - IM - 6./7. Semester

COURSE SUMMARY

This lecture on "The End-to-End M&A Process Design" is one of the modules of the VT "Corporate Finance & Capital Markets" and supplements the lecture on "Corporate Valuation".

In rapidly evolving markets characterized by digital disruption, business model innovation, boundary-less competition of platforms and reconfiguration of global value chains, robust strategies are paramount to increase shareholder value and propelling growth. Business strategies have to be sensitive to their specific ecosystem and, therefore, should be tailor-made. Mergers & Acquisitions (M&As) are, among other strategies, a particular approach to leverage growth and value by redesigning corporate portfolios or by creating a competitive advantage at the business unit level. The dark side (remember Darth Vader:-)) of those strategies is that they bear significant risks, like synergy underperformance or culture clashes. Literally, empirical evidence proves that transactions tend to underdeliver on promised synergies and relative total shareholder return on the buy side due to challenges mainly encountered during Integration Management.

The course will focus on the strategic and technical - including valuation and financing - challenges of M&A processes in an international and digital context and offers a rich toolbox.

COURSE DESCRIPTION & METHODOLOGY

"The End-to-End M&A Process Design" is based on my 2020 book on an End-to-End (E2E) M&A Process Design - Resilient Business Model Innovation. The E2E M&A Process Design is based upon five modules: the first three, the primary M&A process modules, are the Embedded M&A Strategy, the Transaction Management and the Integration Management. These primary M&A process modules are supplemented by two M&A support processes, the Synergy Management and the M&A Project Management & Governance. The framework of our lectures is built around those five modules:

• Embedded M&A Strategy
• Transaction Management
• Integration Management
• Synergy Management
• M&A Project Management & Governance

The mandatory text books we will use throughout the lectures are:

• Feix, T. (2020). End-to-End M&A Process Design - Resilient Business Model Innovation. Wiesbaden: Springer Science.
• DePhampelis, D.M. (2019). Mergers, Acquisitions, and Other Restructuring. Los Angeles: Academic Press. (Selected chapters).
• Sirower, M.L. (1997). The Synergy Trap – How companies lose the acquisition game. New York: Free Press. 

• Whitaker, S. (2016). Cross Border M&A. New Jersey: Wiley&Sons. 

Additional text books, articles and web-sources will be used for dedicated lectures. You should also prepare yourself by regularly reading the Economist (weekly) and the Financial Times (daily). 

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Students are expected to carefully review the assigned reading materials before each session, diligently work on the assigned problems, questions, and cases, and to participate actively in the class discussions. You should be prepared to spend some time to digest the material, to work on the assignments and case studies. Timely submission of the assigned work is critical. Late submissions will not be accepted. 

COURSE LOGISTICS & TIMING

Lectures will be every Monday from 14:00-15:30 (Room W 1.03).

# 1  E2E M&A Process Design
# 2  Embedded M&A strategy I: Strategic Rational  
# 3  Embedded M&A strategy II: Business Model Innovation
# 4  Embedded M&A strategy III: Corporate Revitalization I
# 5  Embedded M&A strategy IV: Portfolio Revitalization II
# 6  Transaction Management I: Introduction to Transactional Value Add - Synergies vs Acquisition Premia
# 7  Transaction Management II: Advanced Valuation - The Valuation of Startups and Platform Companies
# 8  Synergy Management I: Valuation & Synergies
# 9 Synergy Management II: Synergy Capture 
# 10  Integration Management I  - Integration Approaches  
# 11 Integration Management II – Joint Business and Joint Culture Design

Investor Relations

This course is part of the study focus Corporate Finance.

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Georg Erdmann

Examination

Written exam, structure is published in the course documents

Time

Tuesday 14:00-15:30

This lecture is part of the module "Managing Data-Driven Business Models (MD²B)". It contains the part "Understanding and Deploying Data-Driven Business Models" presented by Prof. Frank Danzinger. The corresponding other part of the module is given by Prof. Jianing Zhang.

We will deal in this lecture with:

• Data and business understanding (e.g., IoT-Data-Chain, digital business models)
• Implementation of digital and data-driven business models (e.g., digital maturity, SDL, CRISP-Cycle, industry 4.0)