82273 - Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Laboratory

Academic Year 2020/2021

  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
  • Campus: Forli
  • Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in Economics and management (cod. 9203)

Learning outcomes

This course is designed to introduce students to the financial and contractual aspects that characterize extraordinary finance operations and their application. At the end of the course students will be able to analyse the main corporate control transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs, carve-outs, leveraged buy out and turnaround operations, in the light of the value creation to shareholders principle.

Course contents

Theoretical framework

M&A process and activities

The importance of due diligence

Approaches and methods of valuation

Deal structuring and financial strategies

The importance of post merger integration

The main causes of over-investment

Readings/Bibliography

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Other Restructuring Activities: An Integrated Approach to Process, Tools, Cases, and Solutions, 9th edition, Donald M. DePamphilis, Elsevier/Academic Press, San Diego, Ca., 2014

Applied merger and acquisitions, Robert F. Bruner, Wiley Finance, 2004

Mergers & acquisitions integration handbook, Scott C. Whitaker, Wiley finance, 2012

Teaching methods

The program of the course will be presented in-depth in class. Theoretical and practical classes will be provided.

Assessment methods

Valuation is based on a team project or on a written exam.

The team project concerns an M&A deal. Each team will be asked to represent an acquiring company or investment group whose business strategy involves an acquisition or merger. The acquisition can involve a recent transaction, a current transaction, or a hypothetical transaction involving two publicly traded firms, private companies, or some combination.

The Team Project will be completed by each team submitting both the Word or PowerPoint documents and Excel spreadsheets to the Professor in both hard copy form and as an email attachment.

At the end of the course each group will have to present its case.

The written exam is composed of 11 Multiple Choices and 1 exercise or 1 open question. The exam lasts 60 minutes.

The correct answer to a Multiple Choice gives 2 points. There is no penalty for the wrong answer and there is only one correct answer. The exercise on valuation has a value up to 10 points.

Students are not allowed to use notes or books.

The final mark is expressed in thirties.

Teaching tools

The teaching tools are the projector and the blackboard for exercises.

Office hours

See the website of Tiziano Pacetti