Business Services
Merger management
How to make acquisitions that benefit both companies
By Erik Cassano
Smart Business Orange County | January 2009
Page 1 of 2
Bruce Carson
president and CEO, The Dot Printer Inc.
It always takes longer than
you think.
When performing a merger or acquisition, those are words
to repeat, says Bruce Carson.
The president and CEO of
The Dot Printer Inc. — a $28 million provider of digital services
— has seen many aspects of
the acquisition process over
the years, most recently as his
company acquired Page One
Digital in September.
And the one constant during
acquisitions is change. Some
acquisitions seem like great
ideas at the outset but lose
their luster once you run the
numbers and analyze the other
company’s culture. And some
might not seem like a great
move at first, but once you
delve into them, they make
more sense.
Smart Business spoke with
Carson about how research,
patience and a willingness to
walk away are a winning formula for a successful acquisition strategy.
Q. How do you approach
acquisitions?
You have to look at a lot of
potential acquisitions. In our
history, we’ve looked at 20 or
30 but only have done three,
and they all have been very
small.
Also know that you cannot
pay too little for a bad company. If it’s not a good company,
no matter how good the price
is, it’s not a good deal.
I think we’ve learned to be
patient, to try to keep our egos
in check. We’ve also learned
that sometimes you are buying
beyond what the accountants
tell you. There is a financial
aspect to every deal, there is a
synergy and a culture to every
deal, and those two things
may be more important.
You don’t want terrible
numbers, but culture is very
critical.
Q. How do you keep your ego
in check?
That’s tough to do. You have
to just tell yourself that going
in. We’ve tried to use some
outside people to help us look
at this as we go, folks who
might not have a vested interest in the printing business or
in Dot Printer as maybe
those of us who are here
every day.
At the time we did this
most recent acquisition,
we had a consultant
working for us and we
ran it by him, not so
much to advise us as to
just check our sanity on
the deal. Independent,
outside advisory boards,
support groups, peer
groups can be very helpful in preventing you
from making a mistake,
because it’s easy to
drink the Kool-Aid.
Outside parties will ask
you the hard questions
and take the emotion
out of the deal.
