Running head: ISSUES AND GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
Issues and Growth Opportunities
Issues and Growth Opportunities
Corporate mergers and acquisitions are a mainstay of the business world, and among those often in the limelight are companies of the technology industry. The pace of the technology industry is among the most rapid; companies race to develop and rollout products in order to surpass their competitors. Shang-wa Electronics, and Lester Electronics, Incorporated are currently engaged in the tug and pull of mergers and acquisitions as each have recently been approached by separate industry giants seeking to either merge with or purchase outright. Both Shang-wa and Lester are relatively smaller than those that are trying to acquire them; however, Shang-wa is the most vulnerable to becoming the victim of a hostile takeover by the Transnational Electronics Corporation (TEC), due to Shang-wa’s failure to have a succession plan as the company’s founder and CEO’s impending retirement. In order to understand what the Shang-wa and Lester companies are facing, additional research has been conducted on two separate attempts at mergers or acquisitions of companies in the electronics industry.
Microsoft and Yahoo! (and Google?)
It is hard to believe that a corporation with earnings of $1.38 billion in the first quarter of 2008 alone is considered a small player among its competitors; however, this is how those in the electronics industry view Yahoo! Corporation (Heiskanen, 2008). Since 1997, Microsoft has acquired over 93 companies, so the unsolicited takeover offer that Microsoft made to Yahoo! on February 1, 2008 was not too surprising to those in the electronics industry. Microsoft’s bid of $44.6 billion, or ...