It helps companies improve their odds of successful M&A through an integrated, battle-tested approach that links acquisition strategy, diligence and merger integration.

Based on our analysis and years of experience—including more a number of M&A-related projects across a wide range of industries and geographies—our mergers and acquisitions experts believe that the key to successful M&A is a repeatable model; one that companies can return to over and over again to reap substantial rewards.

The virtuous cycle for M&A begins by building a strong M&A capability that forms the foundation for the success of the model’s five key steps:

Corporate strategy and acquisition strategy:  Develop a clearly articulated strategy and an M&A plan that reinforces that strategy. Strategy our heritage; with more than 40 years of experience helping companies develop time-tested strategies, we understand the types of deals that create value and those that don’t.

Deal thesis: Invest with a thesis. Successful deals are guided by a meaningful deal thesis that is tied to a firm’s growth strategy and that spells out how the deal will add value both to the target and acquiring company.

Strategic due diligence: Ask and answer the big questions. The best acquirers investigate targets with a nose for what’s really important, identifying the key sources of ongoing value and sniffing out any “perfumed pigs” buffed up for sale. A frequent acquirer knows exactly where it can add value and is therefore able to set its own price—and to walk away if the price isn’t right.

Merger integration planning: Integrate where it matters. No two integrations are the same, and companies must carefully consider aspects from culture to IT in order to realize the full value of the deal.

Merger integration execution: Nail the short list of critical actions. Merging two companies requires rigorous follow-through on a long list of integration tasks, large and small. Doing both is hard. Part of the answer lies in a few, powerful guiding principles: tailor the integration thesis to the deal thesis; integrate where it matters; and act with deliberate speed.