The first hundred days have no owner
Deals are run by the people who negotiate them. The months after closing are usually run by nobody in particular, and that is where the value goes.
Deals and capital
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3 min read
In short
Name the integration lead before you sign, not after.
Write the day-one plan during due diligence.
Keep the people who hold the customers, in writing.
An acquisition has a very clear owner until the day it closes. The CEO, the CFO, the bank and the lawyers all know what they are doing and by when. The day after closing, they go back to their own jobs, and the hardest part of the deal begins without anyone in charge of it.
Why it happens
Integration is nobody’s main job. The acquired company’s management is waiting to be told what changes, the buyer’s managers are busy running their own business, and every decision that was “for after closing” arrives at once: systems, prices, people, brands, the warehouse.
Meanwhile the customers notice. The people who hold the relationships get calls from competitors in the first month, and the synergies in the model assume none of them leave.
What to do before signing
Name the integration lead before you sign, and make it someone senior enough to decide. Write the first hundred days during due diligence, while the data room is still open and both sides are still talking. And put the people who hold the customers under agreement before closing, not after.
None of this is hard. It just has to belong to somebody.