There are more M&A disasters in this world than successful ones.

Each successful exit reflects careful alignment with macroeconomic conditions, strategy, timing, legacy, competitive landscapes and personal business building passion. Whereas trainwrecks happen because key drivers and interests are not properly aligned.

But what if you think about M&A as part of a multi-decade, multi-pronged corporate development journey where you don’t actually exit, but you get many of the ‘exit’ benefits in the meantime?

Wait what? Is it possible to combine business strategy with acquisitions, divestments, and legacy aspirations to create an exciting growth trajectory—complete with wealth and legacy optimisation at the same time?

Yes, it certainly is.

In 2017, I wrote an article called Mr. Murdoch's Dump is Disney's Pump where I laid out the story of Disney entering into a US$52.4 billion deal with the Murdoch Family to acquire most of the Hollywood interests of 21st Century Fox.

The deal delivered into strategies on both sides of the transaction, each of which were suffering from media media/streaming disruption

Well, we’ve just seen a similar (and somewhat masterful) move that combines creative disruption defence with legacy and succession—a master stroke by Mr Solomon Lew and Premier Investments with a circa $800m swap of Premier assets for around half of Myer, installing Mr. Lew’s interests in control of Myer.

The deal provides all parties with defence, growth, legacy and potential to generate increasing levels of wealth—and because Mr. Lew’s private company will hold the largest shareholding in Myer, he will join the Myer board and Premier will retain control over Peter Alexander and Smiggle—just like the Murdoch Family retained and streamlined its traditional news interests in the older economy business of the Murdoch empire.

Lew’s deal, for all intents and purposes, is effectively a reverse takeover of Myer that if approved will result in the combination of assets, improve the corporate development aspirations of both buyer and seller, and create an even bigger legacy for the Lew Family.

Whereas it’s a get out of jail card for Myer shareholders.

This is multi-decade corporate development mastery by Premier Investments and Lew’s Century Plaza Holdings with more than a few shades of the Murdoch Family playbook when it sold 21st Century Fox Hollywood assets to Disney back in 2017.

And it’s the high corporate development value creation watermark we should all be shooting for.

Calibrating strategic/temporal events to deliver aligned corporate development solutions is what NextLevel Corporate Advisory is all about—so feel free to reach out if you’d like to start a conversation over ☕🥐

In the meantime, visit our customised corporate development journeys page here.

Mike

Part 5 - What makes a great macro, growth, legacy, financial level-up?