The M&A course concentrates and builds on corporate strategy and the financial know-how and employs five different practitioner’s perspectives of
M&A.
It was a great experience as practical
exercises and guest speakers from different industries entice you to engage
with the subject in a practical way. Our first class was an introduction to
Mergers and Acquisitions by Prof. Dr. Thomas Hutzschenreuter teaching us about
M&A motives for managers and shareholders as well as back and forward
integration and the overall structure.
Prof. Dr. Malte Brettel acquainted us with the
selling owner’s perspective on M&A deals and shared his experience on his
company Just Books who later merged to became AbeBooks.de who then was strategically acquired
by Amazon.com. He introduces the class on potential buyers who are either
financial acquires or strategic acquires as well as advantages and
disadvantages on IPO evaluation of young companies.
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| Dr. Matthias Hentzen |
M&A has a strong legal aspect to it as well
so Dr. Matthias Hentzen, Managing Partner at Sozietät Hengeler Müller took time
to explain our class the legal advisor’s perspective of M&A deals. We had
to assess a legal Share Purchase Agreement between the seller and purchasing
parties.
We also had the privilege to listen and engage with Erik
Hummitzsch (PwC Partner) and Robbert-Paul Roomberg (PwC Manager) who talked
about the Due Diligence process from a consultant’s perspective and we worked
on Project Rocket case study.
One of the last lectures and engaging discussions was with Thomas
Nugel (Vice President) of HVB/UniCredit who took us through a case study which focused on the Fairness opinion and all forms of valuation methodologies
necessary for an M&A transaction. There is a lot of information that one
needs to look at when to evaluate the right share price and trading analysis, DCF
analysis, comparable trading analysis etc. Our last consultant guest was Dr.
Christian Zentner (Head of Legal M&A Energy/Syndikus) of Siemens AG, who introduced the Inhouse consultancy functions as well as portfolio management and IPO
vs. Public transactions. The secret of the ‘deal book’ was especially
interesting as it lists the potential listed company targets. We discussed
voting rights, squeeze outs and insider trading rules.
This course gave great insights into the different M&A
processes and trains business owners on risks that can potentially arise as well
as how to prepare for an M&A deal. M&A follow economic cycles and often
suffer from poor post merger disease, therefore it is important to know the
industry, plan integration, prepare due diligence and reduce potential overpriced agreements. With this course you are equipped to tackle such challenges and eliminate potential risks.
