Window Shopping: What PR Buyers Want From Sellers

Sure, there are plenty of PR agency owners who prefer to roll right along, making their numbers, growing their clientele and expanding their services organically, without ever making acquisitions or putting themselves in play. But what if they ran their firm as if they were going to buy it? The question was tackled during a…
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M&A Negotiations: Salvaging Deals That Go Awry

Negotiations are an inherent part of building your PR or communication business. When using Mergers & Acquisitions opportunities to create value, there are plenty of factors you need to be aware of. Whether buying other small agencies to spur organic growth, selling to an external buyer to combine synergies or exploring a future sale as…
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Is the M&A Party Over? It Could Just Be Starting for PR Field

Following two consecutive years of high-volume global mergers and acquisition activity, 70 percent of U.S. dealmakers surveyed expect a decrease in North American activity this year due to economic conditions and wobbly stock markets, according to a the 9th Annual Brunswick M&A Survey. Globally, however, it’s a different story, with most dealmakers (66 percent) optimistic…
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Why Break-up Fees Should Be the Norm in PR

A “break-up fee” is common on Wall Street if a seller or buyer backs out of a deal after considerable transaction costs and due diligence has been incurred. But for PR M&A deals gone awry? Not so much. A recent case in point regarding the breakup fee: Marriott’s potential acquisition of Starwood Hotels & Resorts…
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Practice ‘Design Thinking’ Now to Avoid Employee Burnout Later

Sure, senior denizens of the PR and ad agency sectors are cocktail-party compliant when it comes to kibitzing about all the work bearing down on the firm and describing how they fear that their most valuable employees may burnout. Then they go back to the shop the next morning and continue assigning too much work…
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3 Top Considerations for a Successful Acquisition

When it comes to mergers and acquisitions in the public relations industry, there’s no magic formula or analysis that can predict the success or failure of a transaction. There are, however, a few factors that can be closely reviewed in an effort to ensure that the outcome of the transaction is as favorable as possible…
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Mergers & Acquisitions: The Importance of Effective Communication

Organizations are constantly evolving, accommodating large- and small-scale changes continuously amidst completing their day-to-day operations. Among the largest of these organizational changes are mergers and acquisitions. Though these transactions are in many cases logical, calculated business decisions intended to be mutually beneficial in the end, mergers and acquisitions can throw businesses into a state of…
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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS IN 2015: Outlook

There has been a flurry of Mergers & Acquisitions activity in the past 6 months, both in the U.S. and Internationally.  Several transactions we are working on will be announced in early 2015. Mid-sized firms realize bigger is better and making small acquisitions of quality firms can bolster both top-line and bottom-line growth. They are…
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