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International Acquisitions

International Acquisitions

INTERNATIONAL ACQUISITIONS: THE KEY TO SUCCESS IN THE EXPERIENCE OF ITALIAN COMPANIES
Gianluca Colombo, Valter Conca (*) Abstract Cross-border acquisitions often imply post-merger integration problems and cultural clashes. Despite the general acceptance of this concern, the literature is more interested in the wealth effect for the shareholders than in understanding the ways to improve postmerger performance. In this paper a model of post-merger integration is proposed and applied to a sample of cross-border acquisitions involving Italian companies. The research pinpointed the factors that have had the greatest impact on performance: - an advance planning and the need to select a target company partly with an eye to the post-merger phase; - the creation of a post-merger team involving one or more managers of the target company. Besides, it has been demonstrated that the decision to change personnel produces extremely negative results. Lastly, the research indicates that a target restructuring strategy provide better results when a top-down approach is applied, while a bottom-up approach is better suited to integration strategies. KEY WORDS: International, mergers and acquisitions, post-merger performance, cultural integration. JEL Codes: G34

(*)

GIANLUCA COLOMBO Director-Master Division, SDA Bocconi, Milan. Full Professor, Business Management, Insubria University, Varese. VALTER CONCA Director-Human Resources Development, SDA Bocconi, Milan. Assistant Professor, Business Management, Bocconi University, Milan.

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International Acquisitions

1. PREFACE In the past 20 years the major economic systems have experienced significant growth in foreign direct investments, in which an important role has been played by crossborder mergers and acquisitions. In the literature the emerging phenomenon of international acquisitions has generated a specific field of interest in analyzing the special aspects of these deals with respect to...