Abitibi-Price/Stone Consolidated Merger

Bringing together two companies in the same industry can have its benefits. There are economies of scale which can be realized, and the combined company quickly gains considerably greater market share than either company could have built on its own in the same period of time. However, there can be considerable difficulties associated with integrating the two cultures of the companies involved, particularly when the two companies are competitors.

Abitibi-Price and Stone-Consolidated merged in 1997 to form Abitibi-Consolidated, one of the largest manufacturers of newsprint in the world. The merger is generally considered a success by those associated with both companies, but it was not without difficulty. Having benefited from one successful merger, the company participated acquired another large competitor in a 2000 acquisition similar in scope to the 1997 merger, including the roles of the CEOs following

. . .
third party to assist in the financial preparation, but a management consultant (Marks) who assisted in the management of the merger itself. Marks helped the two companies form a transition team and had key executives talking with each other well before the deal was even deemed legal under Canadian and American law. In this way, the company had plans in place which helped shape the direction of the combined organization, and which helped to minimize (although not eliminate) the uncertainty associated with any such merger (Marks & Mirvis, 1998, p. 90). Mergers and acquisitions reached a peak in the 1980s, then fell off considerably as the financial markets weathered the effects of the savings and loan crisis, the junk bond crisis, and the insider trading scandals that brought down Michael Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert. Each of these activities was related to mergers and acquisitions, at least on some level. Savings and loans invested in junk bonds (which are bonds rated well below investment grade, but which have high returns as a result), which were often used by acquiring companies to finance acquisition activities. Insider trading sometimes was involved (as insiders traded information about which companies were consid
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Burnham Lambert, Results Mergers, Abitibi Stone, Abitibi-Price Stone-Consolidated, Montreal Toronto, Conclusions Current, Summary Mergers, Neither Abitibi, Stone Consolidated, Marks Mirvis, mergers acquisitions, abitibi stone, abitibi-stone merger, poison pill, marks mirvis, market share, 2000 april, marks mirvis 1998, dudgeon 2000, mirvis 1998, abitibi employees, newsprint north america, kessler dawood 1995, 4 personal interview, 1980s mergers acquisitions,
Approximate Word count = 3145
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)