INVESTMENT BANKING ASSIGNMENT
You work for an investment bank and it has been assigned you the task to analyse an M&A
deal, understanding the structure and the motivation. Hence, you need to present a detailed
report about the M&A deal. Below are listed and described your tasks:
1) Description of the Buyer (10 points)
In this section, you need to acquire information about the buyer. First, you need to look
at the company sector and the country where the buyer operates. Second, you compare
the size of the company to their peers (similar companies) to see whether the company
is important for the domestic economy. This will help you to understand whether the
M&A affects the industry competition. Third, you need to describe the activities done
by the buyer (what does the buyer sell? What is the buyer business model?). Finally,
you need to highlights some key performance indicators of your choice and comment
them. This can help you in understand the motivation of the M&A.
Note: these are some of the points you can include in the buyer section. However, many
others can be included if you believe to be important.
2) Description of the Acquirer (10 points)
In this section, you acquire information about the target company. As for the buyer, you
have to look at the company sector; country of the company; size of the company
compared to the peers and importance for the domestic economy; description of the
activities done by the target and key highlights of the buyer financial statement.
Note: Sections number 1 and 2 should be written in executive summary format. Use
your own creativity. Pictures and a nice layout will improve your presentation.
3) M&A Description (25 points)
In this section, you are asked to investigate the following points: 1) Is the target a merge
of an acquisition? 2) When did the M&A take place (agreement date)? How much was
the deal value at announcement date? 3) What source of financing the buyer employed
INVESTMENT BANKING ASSIGNMENT
to acquire the target (cash, common stocks, debt…)? 4) How much of the target’s equity
stake has been acquired?
Furthermore, you are supposed to find information about: the name of the financial
advisor/s (buyer side); the name of the financial advisor/s (seller side); the name of the
legal advisor/s (buyer side) and the name of the legal advisor/s (seller side). These
information will help you to evaluate whether the M&A has been successful.
4) M&A: The Reasons (20 points)
In this section, you will investigate the reasons that induced the buyer to acquire or
merge with the target. The questions you should keep in mind while working on this
section are: 1) why did the buyer merged and/or acquired the target? 2) Are there
firm/bank-specific reasons? You can use multiple sources to check why this should be
the case (financial statements for example). You can also compare some of the key
indicators of the bank to their peers to spot differences.
Examples: 1) Was the bank inefficient compared to the peers? (so that the M&A was
an attempt to reduce inefficiency); 2) Did the bank want to increase market power? 3)
Did the bank have low profitability?
5) Has the M&A been successful? (25 points)
This point is challenging and you are left by your own.
Hints: Check the academic literature on M&A and bank performance. You do not need
to use complex econometric models. Simple descriptive statistics will be enough. Use
chart and tables to explain the results.
IMP: an excel spreadsheet is provided in the assignment folder which includes the group
members and the M&A (buyer name and target name) being assigned.