One of the keys to a successful M&A is understanding of corporate culture. There are cases of post-acquisition business operation leading to failure because the buyer fails to understand the acquired company's corporate culture and implements its own policies, drastically changing the environment so that employees and stakeholders find it hard to cope, resulting in lower revenue than expected. The key is to sustain "invisible assets" such as corporate culture and relationships with stakeholders, including by examining whether to have the acquired company's executives remain involved with management for a certain time.

When an M&A is planned, a financial advisor (FA) will calculate a valuation for the company being sold. This valuation is a "theoretical value," calculated based on the limited amount of information available at that time. While the theoretical value is used as reference, the "relative selling price" will ultimately be decided by the seller and buyer. As the buyer's responsibility to explain its actions to shareholders and other interested parties becomes heavier when conducting an M&A, when calculating a corporate valuation, it is necessary to use multiple methods to determine whether the selling price is within appropriate bounds.

There are cases in which the buyer has yet to determine a specific aim for its M&A activities, but receives a proposal regarding an unrelated company from an M&A service, ultimately leading to failure in post-acquisition business operation. Before examining M&A proposals, it is important that your company develops a corporate strategy and clarifies what assets it is looking to acquire through an M&A. There are two main targeting methods: one is to acquire a company with room for improvement on the cheap and then raise its value by utilizing your company's know-how, while the other is to acquire a company with attractive assets and know-how of its own for an appropriate price, and use it to improve the value of your company's existing business.