The Synergy Solution: How Companies Win the Mergers & Acquisitions Game
Mark L. Sirower and Jeffery M. Weirens
Harvard Business Review Press (January 2023)

“It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.” Warren Buffett

Mark Sirower and Jeffery Weirens agree with Buffett. As they explain in The Synergy Solution, most major acquisitions either fail or fall far short of expectations. Reasons vary, of course, but one factor is universal: positive synergies compound success whereas negative synergies compound failure.

Sirower and Weirens make excellent use of several reader-friendly devices that include checklists, bullet points, initiative sequences, Figures, Tables, and mathematical formulae as well as eight mini-commentaries (e.g. “How to Get All the Answers: Primary Research,” Pages 65-67), six mini-case studies (e.g. “Amazon: Creating Pathways for Acquisitions,” Pages 31-35) and a “Conclusion” at the end of each chapter. There are also three appendices: “Shareholder Returns from M&A,” “M&M 1961 and the Origins of Economic Value Added,” and “Economic Value Added Model Development.”

In this book, Mark Sirower and Jeffrey Weirens provide the information, insights, and guidance you and your colleagues need to ensure that an M&A will sustain –hopefully increase — shareholder value. More specifically, they explain HOW to “raise and address issues, help you do the right deals, and bring your vision to reality. By working through the book, and taking the cascade seriously, you will be both informed and prepared — and able to fulfill the promise of M&A.

“But getting M&A right is not just a project. It’s a state change, a transformation that will affect how you approach acquisitions going forward, improving your chances of getting them right. M&A can and should produce enduring value — for the acquirer and its stakeholders, and also for the economy as a whole.”

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Here are two suggestions while you are reading The Synergy Solution: First, highlight key passages. Also, perhaps in a lined notebook kept near-at- hand, record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references, and lessons you have learned as well as your responses to key points posed within the narrative. Also record your responses to specific or major issues or questions addressed or suggested in the material, especially comments at the conclusion of chapters.

These two simple tactics — highlighting and documenting — will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.