Article: New marketing blitz pressures government to OK U.S. Steel sale

U.S. Steel has sent mailers to homes in Western Pennsylvania with a more direct appeal: “Tell your elected officials to support the U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel partnership.”

It’s common for companies in takeover talks to notify customers or, for major sales, lobby members of Congress, according to mergers and acquisitions consultant Jennifer Fondrevay.

But this is the first time Fondrevay has seen a company talk directly to voters in this way, which she said is a product of the political climate.

“If you go back and see what the mergers and acquisitions deal ratio is, it has slowed with the current administration,” Fondrevay said. “I think they made it almost a platform, which is why (U.S. Steel) may be going to extreme lengths.”

Read The MonValley Independent full article to read about Jennifer’s insights alongside those of Rep. Chris Deluzio and Kristin Kanthak, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

Podcast: How to Survive & Thrive Through M&A with Tim Hughes

Jennifer joins Timothy Hughes on #TimTalk to dive into mergers and acquisitions and how you can survive if you get caught up in one.

In her book “Now What – A survivor’s guide for thriving through mergers and acquisitions” she talks about the fact that M&A happen, you can be going along nicely in your career and then you get hit with the change and upheaval that M&A provides. So, what will you do?

They also discuss the 5 stages of grief that people go through from denial to acceptance and the stages in between, and the post-M&A characters you will come across.

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Contributor: How to Align Life Sciences Teams After a Merger | Lattice

Jennifer was quoted in this Lattice article on aligning Life Sciences Teams following a merger.

Innovation requires a culture of trust.

Life sciences companies are built on innovation — and research shows that innovation takes trust, collaboration, and the sharing of ideas. Unfortunately, trust is often one of the first casualties of an M&A.

“One of the great ironies of M&A activity is that trust, a key ingredient for business success, often quickly dissolves, as M&A activity is usually cloaked in secrecy,” Jennifer J. Fondrevay, the founder of Day One Ready, an M&A consultancy, explained in a 2018 article in Harvard Business Review.

“A workforce can feel blindsided when a deal is announced, eroding trust and transparency in three mutually reinforcing ways: “our” company versus “their” company; the executive team versus frontline employees; [and] who stays versus who goes.”

Read the full article here.

PODCAST with Dharmendra Singh, Chief Executive Officer -MergerWare

Our Featured Guest for this Podcast was Jennifer J. Fondrevay, the Founder and Chief Humanity Officer of Day1 Ready M&A Consultancy. Dharmendra SINGH, CEO – MergerWare had an insightful discussion with Jennifer on relevant M&A aspects like the impact of the past year on M&A, the recent M&A trends, and how companies are getting prepared for Post-Merger Integration.

As Jennifer says, “One trend I hope continues [since the pandemic] is the greater emphasis on employees & the workforce. The workforce itself is saying “No, this doesn’t work for me”. Many people are re-evaluating what work means for them and the workforce is having a greater influence on what happens in an organization.”

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