MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS

The Magic Circle in the UK legal services marketplace has five law firms that are the Kings of the Hill and all but one used mergers as part of the strategy to get that way ergo law firm mergers apparently are really helpful in getting to the top of the hill.
Looking at business growth there are two methods we will be addressing and these two are not always mutually exclusive. The simple idea is you will do better as a law firm if you are a spoke in a wheel that is going somewhere rather than remaining a full wheel that is going nowhere and this is integrated with the paradox that eight lepers that come together do not equal a whole man.
The part of being a spoke is a bit of a potshot at the millions of solo law firms in the Nigerian legal space who in the words of Joe Gadzama in an address to the NIALS said that they were single man who firms who gave off the impression that they had more men with the words, & Company, thus they were better of merging.

The history and effects of mergers and acquisitions in recent business history seem somewhat dismal on account of the fact that the successful ones are little reported on by the business media and the failures are reported ad nauseum.
Plus Warren Buffet has rightly accused investment bankers, M&A promoters and the CEOs who go for deals as doing it largely from a lack of what to do and the excitement of the M&A business when compared with the boring work of sitting down everyday and trying to improve their core businesses.

Here in the local space, mergers of already happening firms are not too many, hell never even heard of one unless on the grapevine or on the entity web site.
If law firm mergers were compelled the same way the banks were compelled to raise 25 Billion naira during the chairmanship of Charles Soludo, how would we do?

On the side of the acquisition , methinks that you acquire entities that fit into your plans, to enhance your competitive position and to expand your reach etc however would local lawyers go for it and more to the point should they?
We suggest that if the numbers make sense and the partners can get along they will.
As to if they should, they definitely should on the premise that we need global powerhouses to compete internationally and if we do merge then the clients at that level will have local legal representation and other levels of the marketplace will have their needs meet by other service providers.
Point is, the marketplace will divide naturally when the animal ambition of the professional, the needs in the marketplace and the economic landscape mix in a Big Bang.

And just in case you got the impression that mergers are bad or we are against it, tisn't so. It is true that most mergers yield nothing and if statistics are to be believed half of them fail absolutely but there is no law that says you have to be part of the failed merger statistic.