Thursday, June 26, 2008

Three Stages of Merger Communications

The media may love hostile takeover attempts—witness the amount of ink devoted to the second attempt by Microsoft to acquire Yahoo, or last year’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. But these are the exception. Of the more than 8,795 mergers and acquisitions deals announced worldwide this year, the vast majority have been friendly.

From a communications perspective, friendly deals have three phases: pre-deal planning, deal announcement and post-integration. (In contrast, hostile deals, which require 24/7 crisis management, have more phases, and can include lobbying shareholders for proxy votes and litigation.)

If you're interested in M&A communications, check out my article, "Three Stages of Merger Communications," published by the IABC's CW Bulletin.

The CW Bulletin is the e-newsletter supplement to CW magazine. Sent each month to all members, every issue of CW Bulletin presents articles, case studies and additional resources on timely topics in communication.

You can also check out Mass High Tech, which published a different article on M&A communications here.

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