S2 - E15 : M&A Stories regarding Serial Acquisitions and New-Age Acquisitions with Nitin Kumar - a podcast by Anirvan Sen

This is a podcast on M&A Stories regarding Serial Acquisitions and New-Age Acquisitions with Nitin Kumar  

Show Notes: On the perspective of serial acquirer vs occasional acquirer, in the past there were three types of acquirers: Occasional, Frequent and Serial Acquirer. Since then the world of M&A has changed quite a lot. Companies that were known as serial acquirers, who had created processes around it and created playbooks, no longer can say that they are a continuous serial acquirer. Due to the massive expansion on types of acquisition i.e. consolidation, adjacencies, acquihire, carve-out integration and new business models, the traditional definition of serial acquirers no longer holds good.   

New trend is emerging where companies want to integrate new operating models or get acquihires to boost their strategy realization faster than the timeline pursued in conventional integrations.  

It is not just the size of an acquisition but also the complexity of an acquisition that drives the length of time for integration.  Now there are companies that have started parallel acquisitions alongside their serial acquisitions.  

Integrations have radically evolved since the last decade and definitely from the last century. Integrations can be functional or structural. Functional integrations is all about functions integrating with each other but in the era of disruptions that we are living in, structural integrations are at play here in many cases. 

Structural integrations may be cross-functional like revenue synergies where sales, marketing, product management, pricing teams need to be involved or it may include digital transformation that rationalizes many roles and functions.  Synergies in the classic way may not be enough in today’s integration. Companies need to factor in Lindy Effect, Metcalfe’s Law, Networks that can drive exponential synergies there. These synergies do not necessarily come out of the functions or the back office.   

How should IMO be configured? Should it be drive-and-deliver, advise-and-support posture, lead-and-influence, is it augment-and-report with business units doing drive-and-deliver work?  Driving value these days is not just cost synergies and revenue synergies but also includes reciprocal synergies where both parties bring something to the table and create value. There are sequential synergies i.e. if a certain sequence of steps are undertaken, it can lead to creation of new viable steps that result in value creation. There are beta synergies that isolate value drivers and synergies that directly impact stock prices.   

Listen  to the episode to know more.  

Nitin Kumar is a 25-year veteran, transformative CEO, and ex Management Consulting Partner focused on the TMT sectors. He has led hyper-scale organizations ($multi-billion P/L) and start-ups with global experience across all major markets (six continents).   In 2020, he was recognized by CEO Today magazine as the "Master of the Pivot", CIO Bulletin as "Top 10 CEOs to Watch" and CEO World as “Most Influential Exec”.  

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikumar/

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The hosts of the interview are:

• Anirvan Sen, CEO Fifth Chrome: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anirvansen/


• Marcella Hall, HR M&A Expert: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hallmarcella/

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This interview is part of a series run by Fifth Chrome (https://www.fifthchrome.com), a firm that enables experienced professionals to build "Future Capabilities for Business to thrive".

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Books mentioned:

- Exponential Organizations by Salim Ismail |  https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00OO8ZGC6

- The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth | https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08334WFSQ

Further episodes of Fifth Chrome Business Insights

Further podcasts by Anirvan Sen

Website of Anirvan Sen