"rmac I agree not much indeed but plenty of your collegues who voted in favour of the deal you have earn more than 6 times that ."
wrote "
Sudden Twang"
Not my deal ST, check my profile. I'm an impartial observer, however I do have a lot of M&A experience with struggling companies and can assure you that the biggest asset to be acquired is the human capital. Often the biggest problem in any failing business is non-core objectives of a top heavy management layer (or worse layers, plural
).
My first actions on acquiring a failing company centre on making sure that the bulk of income from operations is channeled to delivering the service that the income providers expect for the money they have parted with, if you provide sub standard service then the business is in a spiral dive.
Then I cut out everything that does not contribute to that goal, and I mean everything. All that remains is customer facing "need to have", some of the nice to have can be built back in at a later stage.
The only problem with this is that it cuts across most of the interests of the decision makers and committee members so it can only ever happen if the board of directors and CEO are committed to it. Often these very people have a lot of skeletons in their share options cupboards for which their middle management keep the keys. You can see the problem I think...
As an aside to the process, the unions are usually little better and can often be "bought off".
Whatever you do you are all hostages to fortune if you are at the service delivery end of the business. Industrial action will only tighten the spiral dive and hasten your end.
There are usually two outcomes, 1. The business goes to the wall and new buyers get the opportunity for a new beginning or 2. Activist shareholders are strong and smart enough (rare occurence) to appoint a new and radical executive team to take the necessary action, which usually begins with getting rid of a great proportion of the management layers.
I wish you all the best of luck with it.
rmac