Robert F. Bruner is the Dean of the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration at the University of Virginia. He is the author or coauthor of more than 400 case studies and notes, as well as the author of two other Wiley titles, Applied Mergers and Acquisitions and The Panic of 1907. Bruner has served as a consultant to over twenty corporations and the U.S. government, and prior to his academic career worked as a commercial banker and venture capitalist. He holds a BA from Yale University, and an MBA and DBA from Harvard University.

Foreword by Arthur Levitt, Jr.

Acknowledgments.

1. Introduction.

I. The Foundations of M&A Failure.

2. Where M&A Pays and Where It Strays:A Survey of
Research.

3. Profiling the Outlying M&A Deals.

4. Real Disasters and M&A Failure.

II. Case Studies of M&A Failure.

5. February 1968: Merger of the Pennsylvania and New York
Central Railroads.

6. December 1986: The Leveraged Buyout of Revco Drug
Stores.

7. September 1989: The Acquisition of Columbia Pictures
by Sony Corporation.

8. September 1991: The Acquisition of NCR Corporation by
AT&T Corporation.

9. December 1993: Renault's Proposed Merger with
Volvo.

10. December 1994: The Acquisition of Snapple by Quaker
Oats.

11. May 1999: Mattel's Acquisition of The Learning
Company.

12. January 2001: Merger of AOL and Time Warner.

13. December 2001: Dynegy's Proposed Merger with
Enron.

14. January 2002: Acquisition Program of Tyco
International.

III. Avoiding the Deal from Hell.

15. Conclusions and Implications.

16. Memo to the CEO:A Coda on Growth.

References.

About the Author.

Index.

"engages in the kind of candid thinking that has long been missing
from the high stack of books." (The Wall Street Journal, May
26, 2005)

"According to the author, six key elements embedded in disasters
are 'complexity, tight coupling, management choices, cognitive
biases, business not as usual, and failure of the operational
team.' In unison, these are lethal, he cautions. 'Systems that
adapt well to error anticipate it, actively seek information, use
checkpoints to control the spread of error, and invite
countervailing forces to oppose error.' So, what's the insight for
businesses? 'Design of organisation structures and business
processes could employ similar principles to thwart M&A
failures,' counsels Bruner. Part II of the book has ten case
studies, including AOL-Time Warner, Mattel-The Learning Company,
and Renault-Volvo. Part III is about `conclusions and
implications'. Bruner dins in before parting: 'The growth that
matters is growth in economic value. The rest is smoke.' Fiery
read!" -- D. Murali, The Hindu Business Line