Monday 30 July 2007

Update re: Steria and Xansa

I note that Steria shares are down 6.8% right now; valuing them at E808m. This compares with the E704m they are paying for Xansa. This will, almost without doubt, infect them with a serious dose of the old Acquisition Indigestion. Every company I have ever tracked who takes over a company worth >50% of its then market cap suffers the dreaded lergy. Usually takes 2-3 years to recover. Often leads to death (ie change of ownership for the buyer).
BTW, I've added "Don't eat exotic foreign food if you are not used to it" to my list of avoidance hints. "Little and often and nothing too spicy" is still the best advice in diet as well as M&A.

2 comments:

Ian Wesley said...

What time zone do you post in?

Richard Holway said...

Thanks for pointing this out. Have now corrected to London time!