The Effects of Acquisitions on Key External Stakeholders of the Acquired Company?”
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The effects of acquisitions on key external stakeholders of the acquired company. Elizah Bouderij – 10278613 1 | Page ABSTRACT Acquisitions are common in business nowadays. In the media almost daily you hear or read about acquisitions between large companies. But you hear little to nothing about the effects on the external stakeholders of the acquired company, such as suppliers, customers and competitors. Since the focus in the literature is on the acquiring companies and it connected companies it would be interesting to study the effects that acquisitions have on the external stakeholders (the customers and suppliers) of the acquired company. In the literature possible (subjective) effects are described on suppliers and customers. The aim with this paper is to discuss the effects of acquisitions for the key external stakeholders. Do they experience any effects/ changes, and what are these effects/ changes as a result of the acquisition? Based on the obtained data we can classify some effects. In this study these effects are divided into three categories; financial effects, relational effects and positional effects. Suppliers and customers experience both positive and negative effects, such as higher discounts on orders, deals sold out soon and higher price discounts on products. 2 | Page CONTENT 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 BACKGROUND.................................................................................................................................... 5 1.2 PROBLEM DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................................... 6 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES ...................................................................................................................... 7 1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE STUDY ................................................................................................................ 7 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................. 8 2.1 ACQUISITIONS ................................................................................................................................... 8 2.1.1 DEFINITIONS OF ACQUISITIONS .............................................................................................. 8 2.1.2 TYPES OF ACQUISITIONS…………………………………………………………………………………………………… 8 2.1.3 MOTIVES OF ACQUISITIONS………………………………………………………………………………………………. 8 2.2 KEY STAKEHOLDERS ......................................................................................................................... 11 2.3 RELATIONSHIP COMPANY AND STAKEHOLDERS .............................................................................. 13 2.4 THE EFFECTS OF AN ACQUISTION (IN GENERAL) .............................................................................. 14 2.5 THE EFFECTS ON KEY STAKEHOLDERS OF THE ACQUIRED COMPANY .............................................. 16 3. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................................... 21 3.1 RESEARCH APPROACH ..................................................................................................................... 21 3.2 DATA COLLECTION ........................................................................................................................... 21 3.3 DATA ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................................ 24 3.4 RESEARCH CREDIBILITY .................................................................................................................... 24 3.5 RESEARCH ETHICS ............................................................................................................................ 24 4. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS ........................................................................................................... 25 4.1 HISTORY OF THE ACQUIRED COMPANY ........................................................................................... 25 4.2 THE ACQUISITION ............................................................................................................................ 26 5. ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................................. 28 5.1 THE EFFECTS ON THE SUPPLIERS ...................................................................................................... 28 5.2 THE EFFECTS ON THE CUSTOMERS .................................................................................................. 31 5.3 OVERVIEW ....................................................................................................................................... 33 3 | Page 6. DISCUSSION EN CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 33 6.1 RESULTS .......................................................................................................................................... 33 6.2 LIMITATIONS ................................................................................................................................... 35 6.3 SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH .......................................................................................... 35 6.4 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................. 36 7. REFERENCES.......................................................................................................................... 37 7.1 ARTICLES ......................................................................................................................................... 37 7.2 WEBSITES ........................................................................................................................................ 40 8. EXHIBIT ................................................................................................................................ 41 8.1 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS .................................................................................................................. 41 8.2 EMAIL SUPPLIERS ............................................................................................................................ 45 4 | Page 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background According to several trend reports acquisitions are still booming these days. In today’s economy many companies are involved in acquisitions. The latest report shows that year 2015 was a record year. Value increased 28 per cent from 2014 Globally, M&A activity reached a volume of $6.1 trillion, beating the record of 2007. The top-performing countries by value were the United States, China, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Australia, with each beating their achievements of 2014. The year's largest deal was worth $160 billion. Many market watchers have predicted that 2016 will still be a powerful year for merger and acquisitions, largely stimulated by a series of smaller deals. Figure 1: Zephyr (2015). Zephyr is a database of M&A, IPO, private equity and venture capital deals with links to detailed financial information on companies (www.zephyrdealdata.com). Prior research shows that acquisitions affect not only the two companies but also the stakeholders of a company (customers, suppliers and rivals). In every acquisition there are both positive and negative implications for key stakeholders. Shareholders, customers, employees and communities are all impacted (in their own way). From the television or papers we almost daily hear about acquisitions. But very rarely we hear the effects on the stakeholders. 5 | Page And looking at the yellow line in 2015 (number of deals) this means many stakeholders are affected by this huge number of acquisitions. 1.2 Problem discussion Considering the numbers of acquisitions that have appeared in 2015 and in all those years before, you might think it is all positive. Take all these acquisitions, at least two companies per acquisition are involved. This means that there are still more stakeholders involved (employees, suppliers, rivals etc.) Much is described about the acquiring companies and the internal stakeholders. According to Siegel (2008) acquisition may cause employee anxiety, stress, role conflicts (employees are not being treated equally and fairly, management turnover, and cultural clashes, these are just some of the potential effects. These effects are also identified by Olah (2011). When employees are acquired, their lives are filled with a certain amount of uncertainty. They may not remain employed. There may be different processes and procedures that govern their work. There may be new expectations and other changes that will cause anxiety levels to rise. Uncertainty about the future of their retirement plan money. The effect of acquisitions on top level management may actually involve a "clash of the egos". There might be variations in the cultures of the two organizations. Under the new set up the manager may be asked to implement such policies or strategies, which may not be quite approved by him (Butler et al. 2012). The effects of acquisitions on the external stakeholders of the acquired company are less described in the literature. Holtström (2000 and 2003) studied the effect of acquisitions