JACK MIXNER STRATEGY

1. Setting strategic intent
2. Building stakeholder enthusiasm
3. Gaining internal understanding
4. Forming "one company"
5. Capturing value
6. Energizing the team
7. Stabilizing operations
8. Closing the deal
9. Facing moments of truth
10. Identifying intgeation leadership and line management 

Let's look at the first two points.

Setting Strategic Intent

Why will they acquire you? Industry consolidation, vertical integration, adjacent market entry might be logical reasons. And are you to be absorbed, transformed, or simply attached independently (Adolph, page 31)? 

I sat with a CEO recently who had created a new division to take advantage of a new invention. Volume wasn’t high enough yet to make it a likely acquisition candidate, but the CEO realized that in a couple years and about forty per cent revenue growth he would have a profitable, saleable organization. One of his suppliers has told him his invention was useful across the industry. He was selling to ten or twenty of the Fortune 100. A couple of them might ultimately be interested in extending their lines by purchasing his company. For now, it was all about one invention. But he was selling into at least ten different niches, all with different applications and a lot of custom engineering. Ultimately, he won’t need to do so much engineering as many of the needs will be completely engineered and ready to go. Lot of possibilities. We only talked for about an hour. I’ll bet he has a lot of other ideas.

Building Stakeholder Enthusiasm

I used to work in a regulated industry. The Food and Drug Administration as well as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspected us. We telegraphed everything we were planning to them far in advance. Hard experience taught us that postponing updates with the regulators only slowed things down, sometimes greatly.

Your company may have other regulatory issues, especially if either you or the potential buyer – or the combined companies - have a large market share. Wouldn’t it be nice if you even attracted Federal Trade Commission’s interest?

If yours is a union shop, they need to be in the loop, although, of course, this can be very tricky.

The biggest problems I have experienced here, however, have been with family businesses. It seems that there is always an uninvolved cousin who pipes up at the wrong time. A little forethought and planning might just save a sale down the road.

References

Adolph, Geral, J. Neely, and Karla Elrod. Delivering on the Promise: 10 Merger Imperatives. Sisk, Michael and Andrew Sambrook, editors. The Whole Deal Fulfilling the Promise of Acquisitions and Mergers. Booz Allen Hamilton. 2006.