A company merger or acquisition can be one of the most exciting times in your company’s lifespan – as well as one of the most stressful. This is a time period where retaining a mergers & acquisitions attorney is a good idea. A good mergers & acquisitions attorney will be able to work with you in every matter pertaining to your merger. The advantages include helping you with financial matters and intellectual property according to the law. A good attorney can also work with you on how to handle sales and existing contracts, and help reassure employees & management dealing with a lot of changes.
Finally, they can give you some idea of what to look forward to as far as tax and insurance matters moving forward. Along with ensuring that the nitty-gritty of your merger goes smoothly. An acquisitions & mergers attorney also works to make sure that your finest interests are being looked out for, which is important during something as important as a major merger. This article will go through the seven wisest reasons to hire a mergers & acquisitions lawyer, and how they can benefit you and your business.
1. Financials Matters
Obviously, with any type of merger, but especially with an acquisition, it’s going to be very important to make sure that your company’s financial well-being is never at stake. Mergers are often difficult with regard to stock prices, with so much instability and questions about a company’s health. Investors can often feel nervous or concerned about dilution when two separate company’s stocks combine. They can also make financial reporting difficult for the year to come, as two separate companies with different financial tracking and accounting systems have to combine a lot of their data.
This is where an attorney experienced in these matters can help you set up an accounting and financial reporting system that will fulfill your legal responsibilities, as well as helping to ensure that your accounting departments will have no problems during the next independent audit period. Along with ensuring that financial reporting goes smoothly, an acquisitions lawyer will also help to ensure that your company won’t be getting the short end of the stick in any last-minute negotiations, as well as making sure that the other company’s financials are in order, and that everything is ready to merge on their end. If you need legal assistance you can also find additional legal aid here and you can search for a lawyer here.
2. Intellectual Property
It’s important to make sure that your company’s intellectual property is well protected when two separate companies combine their forces. This is why it’s important to have someone with a good grasp of intellectual property law on your side, to make sure that you receive all of the benefits of your companies joining forces. Of course, with acquisitions, this will play out slightly differently, with one company often acquiring another one for a piece of intellectual property. In that case, it’s important to have a lawyer to make sure your company will reap all of the advantages of this deal, and to make sure that no other great ideas are missed.
3. Strategic Fit
Whenever two companies merge, there’s always the concern that their corporate cultures and synergies won’t jive. This is especially important in amiable mergers, where both companies have expressed interest in working together in the future. In this case, it’s good to have some professional guidance about the finest ways to merge two separate cultures to ensure a good strategic fit, and having something of a trained mediator when culture clashes do occur. Since the two separate sides in an amicable merger will want to make sure that both sides are able to reap the benefits of your new partnership, without letting important company ethos and traditions fall by the wayside.
4. Sales
Sales are another space where having a lawyer to represent you is beneficial. When two companies are in the middle of a large transition like a merger or acquisition, it’s important to make sure that new contracts are still being made and obtained in order to keep the company’s finances soluble during the merger. Having a legal team available to help your sales departments hammer out any new changes in policy or customer service before there are any issues is invaluable. This extra step now means that no one will be blindsided if and when there are changes in company policy.
5. Existing Contracts
Having someone help you overhaul your sales policy and get ready for new customers is great, but what will your company do about contracts that have already been signed and now need to be fulfilled by either party of the merger? This is where a mergers & acquisitions attorney can help you. The attorney can help you come up with strategies for the finest way to fill your existing contracts, as well as any difficulties or issues that might arise from two separate companies with separate customer service policies, and methods for fulfilling orders. This is also important during acquisitions, as one company tries to figure out how to fulfill contracts and agreements that the did not make, and might not necessarily be in their finest interest.
6. Employees & Management
Whenever two companies merge, the employees and managers currently working there will become concerned about their livelihoods, something that is completely understandable, but bad for company morale and overall productivity. In this scenario, having a dedicated attorney that can reassure staff and review their terms of employment with them is very beneficial. Employees will benefit from knowing exactly where they stand with their employer, as well as how finest to proceed in a new corporate environment, with some new expectations and idea of what success means. Being open and honest with your employees will give you employees that are ready to tackle new changes ahead, instead of panicking about their own jobs.
7. Tax
Any time two companies combine finances midway through the year, there will be questions about taxes. How finest to file, what accountants might need to look for during the auditing period. An experienced attorney can help you with all of this. With regards to an acquisition, they can also help you to prepare to absorb the other company’s assets, making sure that combined assets and any machinery that needs depreciating are all combined and accurately placed on a single balance sheet. Along with machinery, there’s also the issue of combining two separate payrolls, something that a mergers attorney will be able to help you accomplish.
8. Insurance
Along with combining two separate sets of balance books, there’s also the matter of either bringing all assets under one new policy or making sure that the two separate companies both have adequate policies to protect their assets. This is complicated by an acquisition, where the acquiring company needs to make sure that all of their new assets are being covered. There’s also the matter of liability insurance for employees & management, as well as overhead insurance on any company properties. A mergers and acquisitions lawyer can help you make sure that all of your new assets are covered by insurance appropriately, as well as making sure that no staff slip through the cracks.