COURSE NUMBER: EW236E.11
COURSE TITLE: M&A: Successful investing
across the company life cycle
UNITS OF CREDIT: 2
INSTRUCTOR: Christian Puscasiu
E-MAIL ADDRESS: cpuscasiu@gmail.com
CLASS WEB PAGE LOCATION (HTTP URL): bSpace
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME:
Saturday , 9AM-12PM
PREREQUISITE(S): Completion of core required
CLASS FORMAT: case/lecture
REQUIRED READINGS: case studies and articles,
some parts of books
BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES: CLASS
VIDEO
The purpose of
this course is to develop an intuitive and quantitative approach to buying or
selling a business. Most studies show that the majority of corporate
acquisitions destroy the buyerŐs value. This course identifies points of
leverage, examines the motivations of stakeholders, and outlines tactics to
create value when businesses get bought or sold.
The courseŐs mission is to offer an experience-based curriculum in
order to help students create shareholder value and avoid costly pitfalls in
future acquisition initiatives.
Similarly, the course offers insight as to how to maximize value when
selling businesses. The course aims to help students:
1. Develop judgment: By sharing lessons distinguishing
practices that create value from those that result in loss, the students should
develop intuition and pattern recognition in M&A activities.
2. Understand and set up good governance: Many erroneous actions and outcomes can
be traced back to faulty governance set-ups; proper governance through strong
alignment of incentives and controls is critical to driving sustainable value creation.
3. Build acquisition negotiation and related
skills: The student will
examine how to perform proper due diligence, closing processes and tradeoffs
inherent in doing a deal. After the
transaction has been completed, we examine how to establish a win-win scenario
with the top managers of the acquired company to drive performance.
While not all students will necessarily lead company acquisitions and
sales, most will encounter restructurings, mergers, spin-outs
and other corporate reorganizations as part of their business careers. Being able to understand the deal
process, the forces and motivations around the activities, and ultimately drive
value creation should prove helpful in their success.
BIOGRAPHICAL
SKETCH:
Mr. Puscasiu has been a private and public
equity investor for more than 15 years as founder and as Partner across all
different stages of a companyŐs life from seed investing to growth equity to
leveraged buyouts, IPOs and public block investing and finally turn-arounds and restructurings. He is the founder and general
partner of Three Bridges Ventures, a seed fund focusing on early enterprise
platform technology companies. Prior to that he lived in Germany and was a
Partner at EQT, one of EuropeŐs premier investment firms with over 15 billion
EUR under management, having led the German team of the Opportunity Fund and
the Munich team of the Expansion Capital fund. Before EQT, Chris co-founded
Prides Capital, which focused on small and mid-cap public and private
investing, and led its private equity practice. He started his investment
career at AEA Investors in New York and also spent a few years at Blum Capital
in San Francisco.
Among his more notable investments, he led Blum CapitalŐs investment in
CB Richard Ellis, the worldŐs largest commercial real estate services company
which involved becoming the largest public shareholder, then taking the company
private in a public proxy contest, acquiring its largest competitor and then
taking the company public again. Mr. Puscasiu also led the refinancing and
restructuring of Pegasus Solutions, the worldŐs leading hospitality IT company
and was the interim-CEO of Sanuwave which was his spin-out from Healthtronics
Inc. At EQT we led the financing of EQTŐs largest public buyout of Securitas
Direct right during the financial crisis and also conceived of and led the
consolidation of nine digital media agencies to form United Digital Group in
Germany. He also had to restructure a number of companies to ensure their
survival including SmarteCarte, TitanX
and Strauss Innovation. As an
active ŇangelÓ investor in early technology companies, he currently serves as the Chairman of System
Insights and as a board member of 21Diamonds and Contacts+.
Prior
to his investment career, Mr. Puscasiu was a consultant with Bain & Company
in San Francisco, a software engineer with Geoworks
in Berkeley, and an entrepreneur. He received an MBA with distinction from
Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and
Computer Science. HeŐs a former member of the Cal tennis team and an avid
marathon and ultra-marathon runner.