Bnp And Bank Paribas Merger example essay topic

What is your opinion of a merger? If you say and think a merger is a bad thing then you are not alone. Recently, "mergers were given a big thumbs down in a poll given to Americans and Canadians". The definition of a merger is "a combination of two or more businesses to form a single firm". The cons of mergers greatly outnumber the pros because as companies get larger and larger, people lose jobs, monopolies form, and consumers pay higher prices, resulting in a less competitive and, therefore, less opportune business market. Is bigger really better?

Big might be sometimes better, but companies, corporations and monopolies can get too big. "Some merged companies become so huge that they lose focus, gain overhead and increase their expenses dramatically. Ultimately they can be less innovative and competitive than before". Big companies tend to care only for making money and devalue things such as the quality of the product they produce.

"Smaller companies by contrast, can hold some clear advantages. They are leaner, more focused and nimble than giants and relatively speaking, the can be more profitable". Smaller companies, I believe, are out to make a living and care for the consumer's satisfaction more then just the money they will receive. They know that if they don't produce well and make people happy then they will go out of business or bought out by a bigger company. Mergers aren't what I would call the most successful thing in the world either. Lots of mergers don't last very long or don't succeed.

This past year we had quite a few merger failures. Here are the top 10 Biggest Merger and Acquisition Bloopers of 1999, announced by leading merger consultants. 1. AOL and Netscape 2. Excite 3. Disney and Infoseek 4.

BNP and Bank Paribas 5. Tyco International Ltd. and Binge / Purge 6. Deutsche Telecom and Trouble on the Line 7. American Home Products and Warner Lambert 8. Aetna US Healthcare 9. Auto Nation 10.

Bank One These companies all failed for many reasons. The Disney and Infoseek merger failed for the simple fact that the "managers of Infoseek could not get along with Disney". As these managers quit, the company shares plummeted by 60%. Next we have the BNP and Bank Paribas merger. This merger failed because "BNP wanted to open equity markets in Europe, and Bank Paribas didn't". Half of the equity analysts have left the company and more senior-level management are expected to follow.

In simple terms, the two companies didn't get along well with each other. Then we have Tyco International Ltd. that merged with Binge / Purge. Such a shame that Tyco's newest acquisition had "questions of fraud, people undermining decisions, and bad accounting practices". My last example is that of Auto Nation.

Auto Nation is a company recently formed that deals with "pre-owned" or used cars. It has "shut down 23 of its mega stores, and laid off 1,800 employees just because they overproduced the unwanted plain vanilla models of cars". The company was obviously losing sight of something important, the demand for that color of car. Big corporations are less than perfect. As a business gets bigger, the more cons may surface from day to day business operations. As the company gets bigger, one find oneself "having to manage unrelated businesses, losing strategic focus, dealing with agency costs, administrative costs, having unbalanced capacities, and ultimately one has a lack of control".

Big companies treat consumers different by than those of a small, competitive business. Big companies try to take over and "exploit the economy of the host nation by paying low wages to workers, by exporting scarce resources, or by adversely interfering with the development of local business". It just seems that the greater mass achieved by the company the more it loses sight of what is important. Another big problem with big companies is that they "are so large and wealthy, they may influence the political life of a host nation".

As you can see, the cons far outweigh any pros that can be produced. The effect of a merger for the normal citizen can be traumatizing. Families are forced to move, jobs are lost and money is now scarce in the household. Todd Williamson is a 17 year old Will C. Wood student that has been involved in two mergers.

The first one happened when he was in 6th grade and forced to he moved to Vacaville from New Jersey. His dad's company, Exxon, bought out another small company and his dad and the family were transferred to California. His dad has been working for Exxon for 19 years, and when Exxon acquired Mobil Nov. 30th Mr. Williamson will be losing his job within the next 9 months. Due to the fact that his dad hadn't reach 20 years of employment with Exxon, he will get no pension, retirement or severance pay from the company. Todd shared a few words about mergers with us. He says that "families are torn apart by moving to new jobs in other places, people suffer from a loss of financial support, and jobs, and there is no compensation or care for the employees that it affects".

He also talked about the business aspect. Consumers suffer from "higher prices for gas in the long run, due to a loss of competition, and price fixing". He shared a great deal with us and had some great points. After it is all said and done, many companies have failed because of the affect of mergers. It is as clear as glass the damage and effect that mergers have on our economy and us, the consumers. Our economy suffers from the power that large corporate companies possess and use to economically squeeze the life out of us.

Big businesses have had a large influence on our government and our on our community. Our capitalistic economy depends on business, but we need to be careful about mergers and so that they take over our society. Other people who share negative ideas of mergers are Mark N. Clemente, David S. Greenspan, Peter Troia no, and Michael Lord. I brought their ideas here for you... so... are mergers a bad thing?