Ensuring the success of mergers and acquisitions : an historic approach

Two-thirds of mergers and acquisitions result in failure according to the bankers who carry out the operations. How come they are so unsuccessful when their praises are sung in economic circles ? Is it because managers are more concerned with rapid and spectacular results than deep-rooted reforms ? Is it the short-term myopia of shareholders who are more worried about share performance than the survival of companies ? Is it the greed of merchant bankers or consultants who pay less attention to money ? Or is our perception of these operations distorted by inadequate and simplistic tools ? A historian who has a special interest in companies asks these questions from a novel point of view and opens the way for other ideas which emerge from a financial discussion which is both conventional and universal.