Robert F. Bruner - Applied Mergers and Acquisitions

John Hund, Texas

Daniel Indro, Kent State

Thomas Jackson, UVA Law

Pradeep Jalan, Regina

Michael Jensen, Harvard

Sreeni Kamma, Indiana

Steven Kaplan, Chicago

Andrew Karolyi, Western Ontario

Carl Kester, Harvard

Herwig Langohr, INSEAD

Ken Lehn, Pittsburgh

Josh Lerner, Harvard

Saul Levmore, UVA Law

Scott Linn, Oklahoma

Dennis Logue, Dartmouth

Timothy Luehrman, Harvard

Paul Mahoney, UVA Law

Paul Malatesta, Washington

Felicia Marston, UVA (McIntire)

Ronald Masulis, Vanderbilt

Stewart Mayhew, SEC

John McConnell, Purdue

Catherine McDonough, Babson

Wayne Mikkelson, Oregon

Michael Moffett, Thunderbird

Nancy Mohan, Dayton

Ed Moses, Rollins

Charles Moyer, Wake Forest

David W. Mullins Jr., Harvard

James T. Murphy, Tulane

Chris Muscarella, Penn State

Robert Nachtmann, Pittsburgh

Ralph Norwood, Polaroid

Robert Parrino, Texas (Austin)

Luis Pereiro, Universidad Torcuato di Tella

Pamela Peterson, Florida State

Gordon Philips, Maryland

Tom Piper, Harvard

Michael Porter, Harvard

John Pringle, North Carolina

Jack Rader, South Florida and FMA

Ahmad Rahnema, IESE

Al Rappaport, Northwestern

Raghu Rau, Purdue

David Ravenscraft, North Carolina

Henry B. Reiling, Harvard

Lee Remmers, INSEAD

Jay Ritter, Michigan

Richard Ruback, Harvard

Art Selander, Southern Methodist

Israel Shaked, Boston

Dennis Sheehan, Penn State

Betty Simkins, Oklahoma State

Scott Smart, Indiana

Luke Sparvero, Texas

Michael Spence, Harvard

Laura Starks, Texas

Jerry Stevens, Richmond

John Strong, William & Mary

Marti Subrahmanyam, NYU

Sudi Sudarsanam, City University

Anant Sundaram, Thunderbird

Rick Swasey, Northeastern

Bob Taggart, Boston College

Anjan Thakor, Indiana

Thomas Thibodeau, Southern Methodist

Walter Torous, UCLA

Max Torres, IESE

Nick Travlos, ALBA

Alex Triantis, Maryland

George Triantis, UVA Law

Lenos Trigeorgis, Cyprus

Suzanne Trimbath, Milken Institute

George Tsetsekos, Drexel

Peter Tufano, Harvard

Nick Varaiya, San Diego State

Theo Vermaelen, INSEAD

Michael Vetsuypens, Southern Methodist

Claude Viallet, INSEAD

Ralph Walkling, Ohio State

Ingo Walter, NYU

J. F. Weston, UCLA

Kent Womack, Dartmouth

Karen Wruck, Ohio State

Marc Zenner, North Carolina

Luigi Zingales, Chicago

I am also grateful to the following practitioners (listed here with affiliated companies at the time of my work with them):

Tanja Aalto, Houlihan, Lokey

Max Boot, Wall Street Journal

W. L. Lyons Brown, Brown-Forman

Bliss Williams Browne, First Chicago

Daniel Cohrs, Marriott

Dan Coleman, Fleet Boston

Chuck Cory, Morgan Stanley

Klaus Durrer, UBS

Ty Eggemeyer, McKinsey

Geoffrey Elliott, Morgan Stanley

Catherine Friedman, Morgan Stanley

James Gelly, General Motors

Ed Giera, General Motors

Denis Hamboyan, Bank Boston

Betsy Hatfield, Bank Boston

David Herter, Fleet Boston

Tod Hibbard, Fleet Boston

Christopher Howe, Kleinwort Benson

Thomas Jasper, Salomon Brothers

Scott Johnson, Ober Kaler

Andrew Kalotay, Salomon Brothers

Eric Linnes, Kleinwort Benson

Hugh McColl, Bank of America

Mary McDaniel, SNL Securities

Jean McTighe, BankBoston

Angelo Messina, United Technologies

David Meyer, J.P. Morgan

Dennis Morgan, Yahoo!

Lin Morison, BankBoston

John Muleta, PSINet

John Newcomb, BankBoston

Ralph Norwood, Polaroid

Tim Opler, Lehman Brothers

Michael Pearson, McKinsey

Nancy Preis, Kleinwort Benson

Christopher Reilly, S.G. Warburg

Gerry Rooney, NationsBank

Emilio Rottoli, Glaxo

Jonathan Rouner, CSFB

Craig Ruff, AIMR

Barry Sabloff, First Chicago

Katrina Sherrerd, AIMR

Kirsten Spector, BankBoston

Martin Steinmeyer, MediMedia

Stephanie Summers, Lehman Brothers

Sven-Ivan Sundqvist, Dagens Nyheter

Peter Thorpe, Citicorp

Katherine Updike, Excelsior

Carlos Valle, Merrill Lynch

Manoj Verma, Yahoo!

David Wake Walker, Kleinwort Benson

Elizabeth Wells, SNL Securities

Ulrich Wiechmann, UWINC

Scott Williams, McKinsey

Bill Wright, Morgan Stanley

Harry You, Salomon Brothers

Marc Zenner, Salomon Smith Barney

I am very grateful to the staff of the Darden School for its support in this project. Excellent editorial assistance at Darden was provided by Stephen Smith (Darden’s unflappable editor) and Sherry Alston. Betty Sprouse gave stalwart secretarial support. Outstanding library research support was given by Karen Marsh and Frank Wilmot. The patience, care, and dedication of these people are richly appreciated.

I must also acknowledge the great support and encouragement given by my editors (and now friends) at John Wiley & Sons: Bill Falloon, senior editor, finance and investments; Melissa Scuereb, editorial assistant; Robin Factor, managing production editor; and Todd Tedesco, senior production editor. I also thank the staff at Cape Cod Compositors, who worked with the Wiley team, for their fine attention to detail. Pamela Van Giessen, executive editor, Joan O’Neil, publisher, finance and investment, and Will Pesce, president, were decisive in my commitment to embark on this project. For the vision and enthusiasm of the Wiley organization, I am very thankful.

Lewis O’Brien, permissions consultant, makes the author’s life immeasurably easier. He checked the manuscript, offered editorial advice, and ferreted out some elusive permissions to quote the material of other authors.

Of all the contributors, my wife, Barbara McTigue Bruner, and two sons, Jonathan and Alexander, have endured the greatest sacrifices for this volume. It is significantly a product of their faith, hope, and charity.

All these acknowledgments notwithstanding, responsibility for the final product is mine. I welcome suggestions for its enhancement. Please let me know of your experience with this book either through Wiley or at the coordinates given below.

Robert F. Bruner

Distinguished Professor of Business Administration and

Executive Director of the Batten Institute

Darden Graduate School of Business

University of Virginia

Post Office Box 6550

Charlottesville, Virginia 22906

United States of America

E-mail: brunerr@virginia.edu

Web site: http://faculty.darden.edu/brunerb/

1 1. Quoted from Albert Bigelow Paine’s authorized biography, Mark Twain, 1912, page 559.

2 2. How to Resist Hostile Takeovers, edited by Joseph O’Donoghue and Donald Grunewald (International University Press, 1991).

3 3. Darren Berry, Anne Campbell, David Eichler, Dennis Hall, Jerry Halpin, Peter Hennessy, Brian Kannry, Doug Leslie, Andrew Meiman, Reed Menefee, Casey Opitz, Katarina Paddack, Thien Pham, Chad Rynbrandt, Michael Schill, John Sherwood, Jane Sommers-Kelly, Carla Stiassni, Sanjay Vakharia, Larry Weatherford, and Steve Wilus.

M&A ( mergers and acquisitions ) 1 is no easy path to riches or career advancement. On average, it looks like buyers earn just the going rate of return on their acquisitions. However, around the average is a wide variance. We learn about the stupendously bad deals from the media: They make lurid reading and sell copy. Unfortunately, we know less about the real winners, probably because successful buyers do not want to alert the competition. Nevertheless, we know enough to say that it is possible to succeed through M&A.