Hostile takeover/M&A

I don't have any books to suggest, but you're likely to find relevant articles, case studies & white papers at Harvard Business Review and at various of the consultant sites like McKinsey, Bain, PWC and Accenture.

There are biographies of some of the great pirates of American finance. Off the top of my head I can onlt think ot T. Boone Pickens and Warren Buffett. Pickens did some hostile takeovers, but Warren doesn't work thay way. You might also look into the development of Nations Bank into whatever they call it now and the games they played along the way.

P-Baker said:

I've considered some of those bios, but I've not found any at the bookstores I have access to (my profile says Houston, but I'm actually a ways out in a small town no one's heard of) and am not in a position to wantonly order new ones unless I'm sure they're what I'm after. Does Buffet's include an in-depth examination of any of his takeovers?

Click to expand...

Do they have public libraries near you? Those are great resources for research. I can't remember details of the book on Buffett that I read.

You might start with some online sources and see what books are mentioned. The article in wikipedia has a section on hostile takeovers, and that article lists some sources. You might search for online articles about takeovers; there are some.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takeover#External_links

What kinds of details are you looking for? Or do you know, yet?

Small libraries usually have access to interlibrary loan, where the library can borrow books from other libraries. It might take a while, but you can get books from many other libraries through your small local library.

Jim Clark-Dawe

P-Baker said:

Thank you. I had hoped to receive advice as to the quality of the information in available books. Locating information is easy; knowing what information is worth locating is more difficult.

Click to expand...

All information is questionable, but I think that most of what you will find in published sources about this will be reasonably accurate. A lot of the details of takeovers are published in newspapers and magazines while the action is going on, so there usually are multiple sources for authors.

I can't personally recommend any books on this - but it is an interesting area. I did a quick google search and found this link: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/02/20/the-outsiders-the-book-the-activists-are-reading/ . It references a book that sounds like you might find it interesting (although not sure of the level of detail).