ABSTRACT
The factor that often determines the risk profile of the project is whether the acquisition or business combination is a 'friendly' agreement or not. If the owners of the target business put it up for sale, or otherwise cooperate effectively with the bidder's plan, they will normally supply more relevant information. With the benefit of hindsight, the chief executive acknowledged this during a post project review meeting. Stakeholder communications is a key challenge for the acquiring project team. Project managing a business acquisition is challenging for any team, but is one where specialist experience of successfully managing such projects before is a real and rare asset. Measuring project success is difficult as actual business results can only be compared with estimates of what the outcomes would have been without the acquisition.
