Yes many M&A fail to deliver and as you highlighted above the list of issues behind it is quite long. I will add complementary ones with a different angle:
– cheap money, financial engineering (sometimes banks, BoD, other actors interest), playing poker with someone else money
– conflict of interests
– hubris CEO running crazy for recognition and package (apply to top team members wanting The deal at any cost)
– over aggressive synergies to sell the deal and eyes stuck on the stock market afterwards instead of operations mid / long term efficiency
– no review of past acquisitions or BD projects and lack of transparency/honesty to learn from the mistakes
– lack of power or unwillingness of regulatory bodies to dig on issues (only works in the US due to the whistleblower incentives and protection), lack of power of company internal ‘regulatory bodies’
– fines and sanctions apply to the legal entity…
