A blog reader, Michael C., called my attention to the photo on the right from the Japan Times. What we both see in this photo is the pain of the older men on the right who are classic corporate leaders in the Japanese mold. Both are from Fuji TV, which is trying to form a holding company of media outlets and was stymied by the young fellow in white who bought a chunk of stock to block the purchase of a radio network.
Japan is lagging the U.S. by about twenty years in the merger and acquisition business. M&A, as it is called, became a core part of commerce in the U.S. in the mid-1970s. M&A is a pseudonym for the creation of a marketplace that trades in entire companies. You buy and sell companies. The actual process is still cumbersome and expensive but many individuals are active in the M&A marketplace, buying and selling companies.
Before the M&A market could mature, interchangeable
managers had to exist and a whole bevy of consultants had to learn their
trade. Companies are not yet
homogeneous enough for all sales and mergers to work … about half don’t
work.
I’ve worked on several companies that wanted to sell themselves (the owners were worn out) and the process of making a company into a saleable commodity is arduous. For family owned companies it is usually a nightmare. I also worked as a banker buying small banks. That was much easier since banking has been quite standardized in processes and function for a long time.
Over time I expect the workplace, everywhere, to become much more homogeneous so that mergers have a higher success rate.