Mergers and Acquisitions For Dummies

by Bill Snow

The easy way to make smart business transactions
Are you a business owner or executive thinking about selling a division, a subsidiary, or the entire company?  Or are you thinking about how you may be able to grow your business by merging with or acquiring other companies?  Or are you a student thinking about making a career in a mergers and acquisitions (M&A) related industry?

In other words, if you are looking for a plain-language, no-nonsense guide about how mergers and acquisitions can affect your company and career, you've found your book!

Mergers & Acquisitions For Dummies is your insider's handbook about the practice of buying and selling companies. It explains the entire M&A process step by step, introduces you to industry specific terms and acronyms, details the documents used when buying or selling a company, discusses valuation techniques, reveals insights about how to finance deals, provides real world examples of how to structure transactions and bridge valuation gaps between Buyer and Seller, and gives you the basic tools you will need to successfully close M&A transactions.

Plus, you'll get expert advice on identifying and contacting potential M&A targets, performing due diligence, drafting the purchase agreement, and integrating new employees after the deal closes.

Going beyond the case studies of other books, Mergers & Acquisitions For Dummies is your one-stop reference guide for successfully buying or selling companies.  

Genres: Business, Finance, Money

358 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 2011

Reviews

[Dan Pfeiffer · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good primer for the price where other books on the topic are north of $40.00. The appendix is quite useful. I recommend it as a good starting point if you have interest in this subject.

[Bassam Islam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent book on Mergers and Acquisitions for the very unintiated. I appreciated that it introduced the concept to me simply.

[Joost · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative

[Emil Svartström · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent book on this topic

[Gaurav Srivastava · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent book for an introduction to mergers and acquisition

[Javier HG · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aunque este puede parecer un libro "demasiado" sencillo, es muy recomendable leerlo aún siendo un veterano de la industria. Primero porque se refrescan conceptos, y segundo porque trata el mundo de las fusiones y adquisiciones no tanto desde el punto de vista de las grandes compañías, sino desde el llamado "middle market"; ese conjunto de empresas cuyos ingresos van desde unos pocos millones de euros hasta unos pocos cientos.

¿Por qué se compran y venden empresas? ¿Cómo se inicia el proceso si eres el comprador? ¿Y si eres el vendedor? ¿Cuales son los principales retos para que la operación llegue a buen puerto? La serie "...for dummies" no es una serie profunda y por eso sus libros son muy recomendables para aquellas personas que quieran una primera lectura o un conocimiento general. Aún llevando años en finanzas este libro me ha sido muy útil porque me ha ayudado a recordar algunos pasos del proceso y también en tener claro cómo debe ser su evolución. Recomendado para l@s que quieran saber más sobre porqué y cómo se venden empresas.

[Shai Sachs · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book to get a reasonably concise overview of the M&A process, and it certainly delivered on that score. In large part it's concerned with process and some of the high level concepts in corporate accounting, which is helpful in that I'd only really had a dim understanding of some of that before reading the book. It's also helpful in that it gives both the buyer's and seller's perspective, motivations, and constraints in the process. I particularly enjoyed Snow's take on the creativity required to close otherwise-tricky deals; the last few chapters, which outline some of the tactics needed to work around problems, are quite interesting. Of course, the book suffers a bit from the drawbacks common to every Dummies book - repetitiveness, a constant refrain of "talk to a professional if...", and the unnecessary jokes. But that is well worth the relatively succinct and understandable introduction to a very complicated process.

[stefanddddddd · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice overview of the M&A processes from start till the end - equally applicable to small businesses and to large corporations. for me, it brought together 1001 pieces of information in a coherent map and allowed me to focus on the current step rather trhan worry about all the future pieces of the puzzle.

[Julio Martinez-clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book!

This book gave me the tools and the language (in simple terms) to be able to navigate the M&A waters.

[Yves · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great starter when you know nothing about M&A or when you think you know a lot about M&A. Great refreshing primer.

[Don Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good book for someone looking to get started in M&A.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty basic and easy to understand "for dummies" book. I was hoping for a little bit more depth in some parts, but it's a good beginning resource.