Ensuring your merger meets your objectives and safeguards your interests
- A merger can be very effective for achieving your growth goals, yet needs thorough preparation to succeed.
- The due diligence process must reveal any potential problems with your proposed partner.
- Legal documents should be carefully prepared to protect your future interests.
- Our broad industry knowledge and expertise will deliver a merger process that’s thoroughly researched and tailored to meet your objectives and deadlines.
What is a company merger?
A company merger involves a combination of two or more companies into a single entity. This can be accomplished through a merger of equals or a takeover of one company by another. Mergers are often used to increase market share, reduce costs, and gain access to new markets or technologies.
How Moore Barlow can help
A merger can be very effective for growing your business, helping you reach new markets, achieve cost efficiencies, acquire talented new staff and increase shareholder value. As the business you merge with may well trade in similar areas, you can also view the merger as a way of eliminating a competitor.
Since you are merging with a like-minded company, it should be a friendly transaction. Yet there are still pitfalls to be aware of. Your lawyers will need to carry out due diligence, checking the other company’s financial position and performances, including their tax and pension liabilities. You’ll want to know how effectively they operate, their company structure, sales system and any management or staff issues.
Due diligence should also reveal their market position, the technology and intellectual property you could benefit from, and their competitors (if they’re operating in a different sector to you). Crucially, it should also confirm their legal position, such as ongoing contracts and whether the company has regulatory problems or is facing litigation.
The merger itself can also be legally complex, so you’ll need expert legal support here too. With so much to consider, it’s vital your lawyers are thorough and vigilant at every stage. It also helps if they can draw on a strong working knowledge of the relevant industry sector.
Our corporate team is experienced and accomplished in all types of corporate transactions, including mergers. We supplement this expertise with our wide industry knowledge and the strength of our specialist legal teams in areas such as employment and strategic commercial services. As a result, you’ll benefit from a service that covers every aspect of your merger, seamlessly.
Besides thoroughly researching the company you want to merge with, we’ll make sure we understand you: your objectives and approach to risk, your resources and areas of strength and weakness. By doing this, we can tailor the merger to meet your goals and ensure the legal documents safeguard your position.
All this requires painstaking care, yet mergers can be time-sensitive. For us, there’s no conflict between attention to detail and urgency; we will work tirelessly and use the full strength of our resources to make sure your merger meets your deadlines and puts your new organisation in the strongest possible position for the future.
With our expert team based across our offices in London, Southampton, Richmond, Lymington, Guildford and Woking, we’re ideally placed to offer specialist legal advice and support on a local, national and global level.
