Summary of Mergers and Acquisitions Course
For a vast majority of companies, merger or acquisition is a life-changing event. On the other hand, some companies routinely acquire other, smaller ones. And finally, some firms even made it their core business to buy and re-sell companies. In any case, a merger or an acquisition is a very complex transaction that can create or destroy a lot of value and impact many people, like no other working of business.
The purpose of this course is to provide a student with concepts and tools to understand how companies and bankers evaluate, structure and execute mergers and acquisitions. We explore several areas: why M&A are transacted at all, how they are valued, what legal issues need to be addressed, and particular details of friendly, hostile and international M&A. For every area, we begin with reviewing theory and then look at how it is applied in the real world.
We need to emphasize that this course is not about financial valuation, although the deal value is a key issue during every transaction. This course is more about how external factors (legal, strategic, organizational, tactical) interplay to drive financial valuation in a competitive game. This course will be very useful for those students who are interested in investment banking, leveraged buyouts and general management.
Recommended Textbook for Mergers and Acquisitions Course
The recommended textbooks for this course are: “Mergers, Acquisitions and Corporate Restructurings” by Patrick Gaughan and “Principles of Corporate Finance” by Brealey, Myers, Allen.
Duration of the course can vary, depending primarily on the amount of time a student is able to commit and previous experience with accounting and finance. In most cases, the course can be completed within 4 weeks, given 2 sessions per week.
Success during the course is impossible without working knowledge of corporate finance and especially valuation, therefore Introduction to Finance and Introduction to Corporate Finance are pre-requisite to this course. Good understanding of strategic management, while not required, will be very useful for evaluating rationales for M&A and ultimately for better estimating the deal value. Finally, almost all the case studies in this course require detailed financial modeling, therefore fluency in Excel is critical as well.
Mergers and Acquisitions Course Outline
- Introduction to M&A.
- Valuation overview.
- Legal aspects.
- Friendly acquisitions.
- Tax issues.
- Payment methods for acquisitions.
- Valuing synergies.
- International M&A.
- Hostile M&A.
- Defensive tactics.
- Hostile takeovers.
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