Needless to say, it did not go well; the company’s share price crashed and there was a fairly large exodus of staff.
The view from the ground
Kamil Kaczmarski, a partner at Oliver Wyman, told me a lack of an overarching vision, clarity of the benefits of a merger as well as board-level preparedness can lead to confusion at staff level on issues as seemingly insignificant as not knowing whether to wear a tie into the office after the merger.
These ‘soft’ factors are often as important as hard strategic decisions to the success of an acquisition, he said, with the outcome of a lack of communication on company cultural issues usually leading to an exodus of staff.
“The moment a merger is heard about, headhunters will tap the best-rated fund managers, and [often] teams will get poached," he said.
In a pandemic-scarred world, where employees do not frequent the office with anywhere near the regularity seen pre-lockdown, team dynamics are harder to absorb and problems much harder to detect.
While the reasons for mergers leading to underperformance are numerous and complex, asset managers looking for a join-up would do well to focus on culture.
sally.hickey@ft.com
