4 ms·

I know M&A's are known to be unprofitable, so why do they continue to happen? What's going on that we are all missing?

• HillaryBriss 11y ago
  failed experiments. in this case, someone at Google thought Boston Dynamics would be a good fit and that they'd be able to profitably cooperate. well, unanticipated complications prevented it. but they tried something different. sometimes these things do work out well. not this time.
• pjc50 11y ago
  Empire-building. It's usually not profitable for the company, but for the senior execs it's the best way to acquire more subordinates.
• hluska 11y ago
  As pjc50 said, it's often definitely a case of empire building. Other times, the kind of personality that propels one into upper management makes him/her a particularly poor choice to execute an acquisition. Consider strong competitive instincts. While that is an excellent trait in certain types of companies, it can be a nightmare when it comes to acquisitions. Hell, highly competitive people can and have raised the valuation of a company several magnitudes beyond reasonable, simply through a bidding process. In many ways, a competitive acquisition process looks like an auction and all the usual caveats apply.
• oldmanjay 11y ago
  Perhaps because they are also known to be profitable.