The Deal Paradox

Book excerpt: The Deal Paradox explores what successful dealmaking looks like in the age of digital transformation, drawing on interviews with top dealmakers and M&A experts sharing their stories, triumphs, and challenges. Taking a dynamic storytelling approach, The Deal Paradox navigates the transition from traditional and ingrained methods to new techniques, showing how AI, big data, and machine learning can be used to generate new opportunities and enable diversity. It walks through the attributes and skills needed in this new landscape and how M&A professionals can build them into their approach, from finding and executing deals to making sure they deliver the desired outcomes. The Deal Paradox draws on 60 years' combined experience of cutting-edge deal making, built on landmark deals ranging from Morgan Stanley's IPO at the height of the 1980s banking boom and Kraft's takeover of Cadbury to key tech deals including the £1bn sale of financial data intelligence company Acuris to ION. Chapters are richly illustrated throughout with real-world examples featuring organizations such as Apple, Google, BP and SoftBank Vision Fund.