Mergers and Acquisitions

I lead a software development team as well as two other teams: a customer-facing one for deployment and escalation, and a group that supports the valuation of the software we produce internally. I enrolled in the Mergers and Acquisitions program because my future goal is to have my own startup. It’s important to understand how other companies operate, and when it’s a good idea to scale up. I wanted to get insights in that area.

The course was amazing, and gave me a lot to think about. For example, there’s a lot of prep work that is required to acquire a company, or divest, or merge a different department with your department. It’s a critical portion of deciding whether to go forward. I also appreciated learning about the integration process once the acquisition or merger is done. Even if you have done many, many acquisitions before, if the integration fails, you won’t achieve the goal of what the deal was supposed to do. I found the integration discussion very relevant to hiring new talent in my teams, in terms of how to integrate new hires into our own journey.

The faculty at Wharton is always great. The content of this course was well curated and I would give very high marks to the professors. They struck an amazingly good balance between talking about the important and less-important topics, and providing explanations.

I also valued being with the other participants. The questioning and comments, and the projects that we did together, really helped me understand the concepts more deeply. I’m thankful for their openly sharing their knowledge and wisdom with others in the room. I would definitely recommend the course and have already done so with some of my colleagues, as well as a few of my employees.”

Raj Kiran Head of Developer and Customer Experience, Cisco

I'm responsible for the operations of a 94-year-old medical association that focuses on the business of medical group practice. As an organization, we are looking to grow, and as we surveyed the market it became evident that M&A was a potential means to that end. From an operational perspective, I know how important it is to acquire the financial acumen and the specialized vocabulary of folks who are in the M&A space on a day-to-day basis. I took the Mergers and Acquisitions course to understand more about the M&A process and the role I could play in the transaction as well as post-merger considerations.

The program and faculty were exceptional. It was great having professors who were clearly world class and on the cutting edge. At the same time, they were personable and accessible. They really were willing to give you the time, during the session or after, if you had questions. I couldn’t be more appreciative.

I particularly enjoyed the negotiations portion of the program. It allowed us to interact with amazingly bright classmates who were experts themselves. I learned a great deal not only from the course material, but from my fellow participants. I appreciated the great diversity in the room, both from an industry and an international perspective. For me, that set this course apart from those I’ve taken in the past.

I think Wharton does a good job of moving you through a great deal of information, as well as knowledge gathering, in a way where there are high expectations. You don’t just come in and tackle one concept that’s repeated over and over and work on that through the session. Instead, there was a pace to it that I particularly enjoyed, that really forced me to think, and made the days move quickly.

My company is in the midst of strategic M&A work; we're looking at targets and have already been through several phone calls and interactions with organizations we're looking to acquire. The Wharton program enhanced my understanding as well as my ability to lead in those situations. I apply skills and knowledge from the course every day.

I would give the program a 10 out of 10 and highly recommend it to folks at any stage of an M&A experience.”

Todd Evenson Chief Operating Officer, Medical Group Management Association

I enrolled in Mergers and Acquisitions because I have a huge amount of respect for Wharton’s world-class faculty and education. And secondly, it was very relevant to my job. At the Ott Group, I’m responsible for corporate development. I'm focusing on the execution of an M&A strategy to build a new arm of the company in diagnostic design, development, and manufacture. We've acquired one company and are in the process of acquiring another. As the principal for my company’s M&A deals, I wanted to get a feel for what the experts were saying.

I really liked the program a lot. I enjoyed the diversity of topics that were covered. Most importantly, we received not only basic strategy but a lot of practical guidance. I’ve started to apply those teachings to my work. For example, Professor David Wessels — who literally wrote the book on valuation — created the Key Value Driver equation representing how he thinks about value in companies, and why. I was able to take that home and use the KVD equation in my next valuation.

Also, the course changed the way I think about capital structure, based on Wessels’ lesson that the value of a company is completely based on growth rate, tax rate, return on invested capital (ROIC), and weighted average cost of capital (WACC). I started thinking about exactly what our ROIC and WACC are at the Ott Group, and it drove me to a broader realization about how high the cost of equity can be for a profitable company. We typically utilize debt when considering an acquisition, but if we're using equity, we’ll need a much higher rate of return in order for it to be a good use of capital.

Another aspect of the course I really appreciated was getting to hear from speakers such as a lawyer and an investment banker, who have done hundreds of M&As. They shared anecdotes of actual deals, their thought processes, and the outcomes. In addition, the other course participants made a lot of very valuable comments. It was a global, diverse group that had great experience and insight into real deals.

The big benefit to me of this course was the practicality of it — hearing about, and talking about, how we’re executing real-world agreements. I would give the course a 10 out of 10 and I highly recommend it.”

Ryan Ott Executive Vice President, The Ott Group; President, Ethos Biosciences

I absolutely loved the Mergers and Acquisitions program. It certainly exceeded my expectations. One of the things that I enjoyed most was the quality of the faculty. Obviously they’re top notch in the industry, but they are also really good at teaching and transmitting the message to the students. There are schools where you might be talking to a Nobel Prize winner who wrote all the books on the subject, but if they don't know how to teach, then the value is not there, in my opinion. I think Wharton really excelled with the faculty that delivered the different subjects of the M&A program. I take my hat off to all of them.

The negotiation session was remarkable. We got some hard dos and don’ts and good lecture material, as well as a chance to practice with different case studies. I also very much enjoyed the session on divestitures because it's what I have been working on over the last couple of years.

I really appreciated the fact that all the group sessions were broken out into different teams, which allowed everyone to meet each other. The mix of people was amazing: we had CEOs, CFOs, operations people, finance individuals, venture capitalists, lawyers. It was very enriching to speak with people from different industries, functional levels, and geographies. Another nice takeaway was the great network we all walked away with. We’ve established a group through WhatsApp and LinkedIn. I would enthusiastically recommend the course to people in the industry and in similar positions where they will touch any aspect of a merger, acquisition, or divestiture during their careers.”

Rodrigo Rodriguez-Novas Founder & CEO, NORDES Consulting

I am an equity partner at Harbourfront Wealth Management. I own a practice here as well and run a team out of Vancouver. For finance and business, Wharton is known as one of the best schools in the world. Both Warren Buffett and Elon Musk studied there. The reputation of the school and the quality of the professors really drew me to the Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) program.

What resonated with me the most was Professor Richard Shell’s negotiation workshop. The tools and awareness have already made me a much more potent business leader. They say that you learn 20 percent from reading information and 80 percent from actually doing — Professor Shell has a great combination of classroom lectures and hands-on learning, simulations, and real-life case studies. The whole M&A program was like that. That’s such a better way to learn from a retention standpoint. Even though the material is advanced, you’re immersed in it.

In the negotiation workshop I was able to bring back a growth mindset and much more collaborative approach to how I do business deals. We’re in a very client-focused, client-centric business. It’s important to focus on both your client's bottom line and your business's bottom line as well. There’s so much potential for conflict of interest, so you definitely want to go in with a growth mindset, and I now understand the unlimited potential of having one. Sometimes in negotiation, people think win-lose, but having that collaborative growth mindset really showed me that there’s a better way to grow the pie for everyone. I would recommend Wharton’s M&A program, and I’m also planning to attend another course at Wharton, Professor Shell’s full-week Executive Negotiation Workshop."

Jeremy Reinbolt, CIM Chartered Investment Manager and Investment Advisor, Harbourfront Wealth Management

I lead a strategy and market intelligence consulting firm that serves the energy market in Calgary, Alberta. My focus is on helping my clients achieve their growth goals and targets. While I have been involved in helping to identify potential acquisition activity, my role hasn’t been as hands-on as I would like.

Wharton’s program was very helpful in helping me establish my own frameworks for how I might go about doing the integration of a merger or acquisition. It’s a very complex process — Wharton helped to simplify the complexity of this process using actual cases of M&A transactions. The value of Wharton’s program comes from the thought process, frameworks, and research provided on each of the M&A elements — strategic intent, valuation and modeling, negotiation, due diligence, and integration.

There is a healthy M&A market for the energy sector right now. And it will always be one of the ways companies choose to grow. Wharton has given me a much better grounding into this important growth strategy."

Nevine Booth President, OnPoint Research Group, a management consulting firm in Canada

I’m a lawyer by training, so taking Wharton’s Mergers and Acquisitions program gave me a refresher on business issues such as valuation of companies, which has served me well in my role managing a family office, which includes 20 family members. The most relevant part of the program for me was the full-day negotiation workshop — it gave me insights that I could apply right away since negotiation is a big part of my job. Sometimes you have to find common ground among family members and sometimes you have to negotiate with other advisers. It can be stressful if you don’t have a method to follow. I have recommended Wharton to other managers and financial advisers for family offices because I believe they can get a lot out of these programs."

Rafael Escalante Director of Batis Corporation Family Office Services, Mexico City