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People who wear rose-tinted glasses often have an unrealistic sense of what they can achieve and tend to be more optimistic than those who don’t. Companies that make mergers and acquisitions (M&A) an integral part of their business strategy would be fooling themselves if they operated in a similar state of denial, but surprisingly, that’s what many companies do. They believe — mistakenly — that they never shoot from the hip, that their deal pipeline is well-managed or that their leaders take a hands-on role. In fact, what these companies are really doing is putting aside hard-nosed analysis in favor of back-of-the-envelope guesswork as they plot out their deal strategy.

Highlights:

• Why do so many companies deceive themselves about their true capabilities?
• What kinds of lies are they most susceptible to buying into?
• Why do some organizations believe they don’t need to spend a lot of time on due diligence of public companies and instead adopt the view that they’ll fix any problems on the back end?
• What is the value of bringing both employees and customers into the loop, and what are the potential consequences if companies neglect either one?
• How much weight should companies give to economic conditions when they pursue their M&A strategy?

Guests: 
David Carney, national managing partner, M&A Consultative Services, Deloitte Consulting LLP
Eva Seijido, national managing partner, M&A Transaction Services, Deloitte Tax LLP
Chet Wood, chairman and chief executive officer, Deloitte Tax LLP, managing partner, U.S. M&A Services, Deloitte LLP

Related Content:
Book: M&A Lies (And Why They're Sometimes True)
Overview: Merger & Acquisition Services
Resources: M&A Library
Transcript: The Overconfidence Dilemma: Why Companies Exaggerate Their M&A Skills 

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