Jim Riesenbach, a Rutgers-Camden alumnus, heads a strategic advisory practice in Southern California and was a senior executive at Autobytel Inc., AOL Time-Warner and Comcast.
The ongoing debate over the proposed merger between Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University has included wide discussion about the pros and cons of the merger itself, but it appears there’s been minimal attention to the broader issue of what it truly takes to make a merger succeed — and an honest discourse over why so many mergers fail to achieve many or most of their stated goals.
Our society has often accepted the paradigm that bigger is better, and bought into the many promises made when mergers are proposed. Yet history has shown that mergers frequently fail to achieve the promised synergies and positive outcomes, and often go so far as to actually destroy value in both enterprises.
As an executive and CEO who lived through and experienced firsthand what is widely regarded as one of the largest failed corporate mergers in history (between AOL and Time Warner), I believe it is critically important to recognize the human dynamics of mergers when giving full consideration to such a proposal.
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