Mergers & Acquisitions For Dummies

Successfully buy, sell, or combine businesses

When is the whole greater than the sum of its parts? In business mergers, of course! Mergers & Acquisitions For Dummies walks you through every step of middle-market transactions, from defining your M&A goals to hiring the right investment banker to getting the lowdown on valuation, financing, negotiation, and due diligence. Mergers and acquisitions are complex business transactions, but with the help of this practical guide, you can proceed with confidence that your deal will be a success.

Inside…

• Understanding the M&A process
• Examining the types of deals
• Financing the deal
• Determining a business’ value
• Negotiation tips and tactics
• Drafting the purchase agreement
• Closing and integrating the deal
• Avoiding common pitfalls

Explore M&A, in simple terms

Mergers & Acquisitions For Dummies provides useful techniques and real-world advice for anyone involved with – or thinking of becoming involved with – transactional work. Whether you are a transactions pro, a service provider tangentially involved in transactions, or a student thinking of becoming an investment banker, this book will provide the insights and knowledge that will help you become successful. Business owners and executives will also find this book helpful, not only when they want to buy or sell a company, but if they want to learn more about what improves a company’s value. The evaluation process used by M&A professionals to transact a business sale is often quite different from the processes used by owners and executives to manage those businesses.

In plain English terms that anyone can understand, this book details the step-by-step M&A process, describes different types of transactions, demonstrates various ways to structure a deal, defines methods to identify and contact targets, provides insights on how to finance transactions, reveals what helps and hurts a company’s valuation, offers negotiating tips, explains how to perform due diligence, analyzes the purchase agreement, and discloses methods to help ensure the combined companies are successfully integrated. If you’re getting involved with a merger or an acquisition, this book will help you gain a thorough understanding of what the heck is going on. Updates to this second edition include quality of earnings reports, representation and warranty insurance, how to hire investment bankers, changes to the offering documents, the rise of family offices, and the ubiquity of adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization) as a basis for valuation.

• Understand the merger and acquisition process in a simple, easy-to-understand manner
• Learn the nomenclature and terminology needed to talk and act like a player
• Determine how to hire the people who will help you conduct M&A deals
• Discover tips on how to successfully negotiate transactions

Mergers & Acquisitions For Dummies is a great choice for business owners and executives, students, service providers, and anyone interested in M&A transactions.