9 Characteristics of a Good Acquirer

I do like the aphorism “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”, attributed to Mark Twain. A deep understanding about situations occurred in the past can provide insights about what could happen in the future. From an investment perspective, it is always an interesting exercise to analyze what are/were the best performers, try to identify their main characteristics and then look for those attributes in new companies. Of course this exercise is not guarantee of future success, but it will probably put the odds on our side.

This article, as stated in the title, relates to acquirers and intends to be a compilation of the best traits or practices identified after analyzing many companies involved in acquisition activities, providing with real examples of specific companies in order to better understand how those characteristics materialize in real life. Those characteristics can be summarized as follows:

The intention of this list is not at all to be an exhaustive compilation, b…