Mergers Gone Bad
Joel West writes about how large acquisitions rarely make sense.
I agree, especially having lived through two. There is a long list of so-called “mergers of equals,” or that of near-equals or just big mergers that failed spectacularly. Mergers Gone Bad, if you will.
3Com / US Robotics, Lucent / Ascend (and now Alcatel / Lucent), Nortel / Bay Networks to just list a few equipment providers in the mid 90’s.
The biggest problems are lack of focus, culture clash, overlapping products, overlapping IT infrastructure (read: inefficiency), and pressure to increase revenues for a company of a size that makes organic growth difficult.