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Discover M&A advisory services from EY when you buy and integrate. We help enable strategic growth through integrated mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and alliances.
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Proactive buyers outperform others because of the first-mover advantage. Proactive buyers can be selective of available targets, choose businesses that offer the best strategic fit, invest ahead of time and lay the groundwork to realize synergies (e.g., expansion into new adjacent businesses, markets, technologies, products) as the economic environment eases. Additionally, the programmatic/serial acquirers outperform selective and non-buyers since they are good at strategically using M&A to further their enterprise strategy and have proven integration blueprints.
Proactive sellers who divest early outperform reactive sellers and late movers. By divesting non-strategic businesses/assets early, proactive sellers create opportunities to free up capital, re-prioritize focus areas and invest in high-growth segments. They are also better positioned and prepared to benefit from capital reallocation prior to easing conditions. Importantly, past proactive buying and selling behaviors, even though occurring under different circumstances, reveal insightful trend patterns to guide future economic responses. When adopting a proactive and aggressive approach to dealmaking, significant preparatory work is needed to be successful.