The Deal

• On May 5, 2006, in a deal worth $7.4 billion, Pixar became a subsidiary of Disney in what is considered as one of the most successful mergers of all times.
• Prior to the merger, Disney and Pixar already had a deal where Disney was responsible for distributing Pixar’s works, since 1997 in a 10-year, 5-picture deal in which they shared the costs and profits of movies produced by Pixar.
• After a long negotiation, Disney offered 2.3 of its shares for each Pixar share and agreed to keep the company culture intact.

Employee Dynamics

• Some people expressed early concerns about the merger playing out like most mergers, saying that Disney would trample Pixar’s spirit or that Pixar animators would not accept the deal and would rebuke their new owner, creating internal warfare.
• However, Iger brought his experience dealing with mergers to the table and is considered the driving force behind the successful merger. He was willing to accept the culture of Pixar as one of its strengths and accepted that some things would not change.  
• For Jobs to agree with the merger, Iger had to agree to keep Pixar’s culture and employees. Disney agreed to a set of ground rules for safeguarding Pixar’s looser culture, instead of Disney's formal environment. For example, Pixar employees weren’t required to sign employment contracts with Disney, were free to choose the titles on their business cards, could decorate their cubicles and offices as they wished, and could continue their annual paper airplane contest. Employees were also not fired or relocated.
• Pixar employees also got to keep their benefits and identity; for instance, telephone operators at Pixar are not required to end calls with the iconic “Have a magical day” and employees get to keep the same email address.
• To ensure that the transition would go smoothly, Disney kept the Pixar’s high-level management and used their help to guide the changes and mix the company’s visions as one. Not only was Steve Jobs a board member at Disney, but Iger put Pixar chief creative officer, John Lasseter, and president Ed Catmull in charge of Walt Disney Animation Studios.  
• The Disney Steering Committee, consisting of Steve Jobs, Lasseter, Iger, Dick Cook (Disney CEO), Tom Staggs (Disney CFO), and Catmull was established, aiming to ensure that an organizational environment and culture was created to encourage growth and the development of creative thinking and problem-solving.
• The Committee also made sure that Pixar company culture remained the same after the merger, and was responsible for creating a sense of trust, communication, and respect that was vital for the success of the merge. This dynamic helped the company to work as a team, despite some rough patches.

Investor dynamics

• The price tag of the merger raised some eyebrows at the time, and it was more than most people were expecting, but the merger was originally greeted with enthusiasm by Wall Street, even though some were questioning if the acquisition would dilute Disney’s earnings.
• There were also some concerns regarding Steve Jobs and a possible conflict of interests between Apple and Disney.
• When the deal was announced, Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen maintained a buy rating and $31 price tag on The Walt Disney Co. stating that the Disney-Pixar merger was a perfect combination.
• January 24, Disney’s shares were up 47 cents, closing at $25.99 while Pixar was down 70 cents at $57.57 with a market capitalization of $6.9 billion. January 25 showed a different story, with Disney shares closing at $25.44 and Pixar’s shares rising at $58.02.
• By March 2006, Disney stocks were up 20% for the year, outpacing every other media rival, which some analysts attributed to the Jobs and Apple halo effect.
• The numbers continued to grow for Disney. In 2007, the stock price closed at $35.43, followed by $34.70 in 2008. Net income went from $2,533 millions in 2006 to $24,687 million in 2007 and $4,427 millions in 2008. (S9)

Customer Dynamics

• Some say that Disney is killing Pixar’s magic; for instance, Pixar is known for showing sweet and quirky shorts at the beginning of its movies, something fans came to love. When Coco was released, the short was a 21-minute Frozen spin-off called Olaf’s Frozen Adventure, created by Disney and not Pixar.
• Some fans criticized the move, saying it was evidence that corporate Disney was meddling in Pixar’s creative decisions. However, director Adrian Molina explained that they chose Olaf’s Frozen Adventure because it deals with similar themes than Coco and Pixar didn’t have another short ready.
• Others point out the Pixar sequels as evidence that corporate Disney and pursuing money and merchandising sales killed Pixar’s original intent and focus, arguing that the merger saved Disney Animations while destroying Pixar.
• Moneywise, since the acquisition, Pixar movies saw a jump of a $20 million from their average box office numbers before Disney. When adding worldwide sales, that number goes up to $100 million from what it used to make before Disney.
• Overall, both studies continue to attract consumers, with Disney launching successful animations like Wreck-it-Ralph, Frozen, Zootopia, and Moana, while Pixar launched hits like WALL-E, Inside Out, Finding Dory, Toy Story 3 and UP.

Brand

• Disney and Pixar kept different brands, logo, colors, identities, and different studios after the merger. Each studio makes its own productions. The making of Bolt illustrate that premise; when the film faced challenges, and the Disney team insisted that they would not make the deadline, Lasseter and Catmull refused to use Pixar resources, opting to resolve the issue with creative solutions.
• That is not to say that there were no changes, with Disney pressuring Pixar to release more movies per year, more sequels and straight to DVD movies, which the studio used to frown upon. By the same token, Pixar turned around Disney’s animation department and revitalized it.

RESEARCH STRATEGY

Overview of the CareerBuilder/Gannett Company acquisition:

• In 2002, Gannett Co. Inc. acquired a one-third stake in CareerBuilder LLC.
• In 2006, Gannett increased its equity stake in CareerBuilder to 42.5%. 
• Gannett acquired an additional 10% in CareerBuilder in 2008, making it a majority stake holder with 50.8% controlling interest in CareerBuilder.
• In 2015, Tegna assumed ownership of CareerBuilder. Tegna was formed as a result of spin-offs of publishing businesses at Gannett and Tribune.
• Tegna reduced its stakes in CareerBuilder to 12.5% in 2017.
• Also in 2017, Tegna announced that it sold its controlling interest in CareerBuilder to an investment group led by Apollo Global Management and will hold minority ownership stakes in CareerBuilder

Employees between 2002 and 2017:

• In 2008, CareerBuilder laid off more than 300 workers, which was approximately 15% of the company’s staff.

Investors between 2002 and 2017:

• Gannet becoming a majority stake holder in CareerBuilder in 2008 did not affect other partners in CareerBuilder including the McClatchy Company and Microsoft Corp.
• According to a report published by Pew Research, Gannet's stock value decreased from 39 in December 2007 to 8 in December 2008. However, the report does not provide any information on whether this was an impact of the CareerBuilder acquisition.

Customer Acquisition between 2002 and 2017:

• According to the company, combining CareerBuilder’s resources with Gannet’s further advanced their position as the leading recruitment solution in local markets.
• The company states that Gannett's ability to promote CareerBuilder through its newspapers, television stations and Internet sites gives it a competitive edge over other online recruitment firms.

Internal Transformation:

• In 2006, Gannett chose two directors on the board of CareerBuilder.
• In 2008, Gannett got 3 seats on the 6 member CareerBuilder board after becoming a majority stakeholder.

Brand elements (logo, colors, etc.):

• After comparing the company’s logo from 2002 to 2009 we found that the logo had not changed in any way and maintained its orange and violet colors during the period of acquisitions.

CareerBuilder/Gannett Company acquisition was a “Endorsed Fusion” type of acquisition:

• According to a study published by Finch Brands, the CareerBuilder/Gannett Company acquisition was an “Endorsed Fusion” type of acquisition wherein the lead company endorses the acquisition in an identity lockup after its acquisition.

Pros of Fusion Acquisitions:

•  Communicates shared future
• All team members feel valued
• Signals continuity to other stakeholders

Cons of Fusion Acquisitions:

• Direction/integration may be unclear
• Risk of blurring/conflicting equities
• Medium risk of customer alienation

Research Strategy:

Strategy 1:

Strategy 2:

Strategy 3:

Strategy 4:

Strategy 5:

WHAT INFORMATION WAS AVAILABLE

WHAT INFORMATION WAS NOT AVAILABLE

WHY INFORMATION FOUND COULDN'T BE TRIANGULATED

EMPLOYEES

• The merger between Exxon and Mobil resulted in the loss of nearly 16,000 jobs by 2002.
• This was almost double the 9,000 job cuts originally announced in December 1998.
• Of these, 6,000 were determined to come from early retirement and 10,000 from layoffs.
• An estimated 1,000 job cuts also came from the management level.
• Significantly, around 2,000 jobs were cut before the merger itself.
• The job cuts resulted in greater financial savings for the company and helped improve its performance.
• By 2003, ExxonMobil reported its annual savings to be an estimated $3.8 billion — an increase of over $1 billion from the time of the merger.
• Following the merger, Exxon Mobil also implemented new employee policies which included same-sex domestic partnership benefits.
•  New employees of the merged companies will no longer receive benefits supporting same-sex partnership except in countries where it was legally recognized.
• However, former Mobil employees who received the benefits continued to enjoy them after the merger.
• Exxon Mobil also gave 46,000 sculptures of the Greek horse Pegasus as a gift to Mobil employees in celebration of the merger.
• The goal was to symbolize for Mobil employees the unity of "the historic tradition of the company with its optimistic future" following the merger.

INVESTORS

• The merger was expected to bring greater cost savings than originally estimated to shareholders of the companies.
• Following the announcement, individual shares of Exxon and Mobil initially fell by $3.3 to $71.6 and by $2.25 to $83 respectively.
• However, shares of the newly merged Exxon Mobil rose by $.069 to $83.06 in December 1999.
• Numerous industry analysts predicted positive results for the companies' shareholders following the merger.
• Industry analysts also praised the combination and forecast more mergers in other industries in the wake of ExxonMobil's birth.
• The merger left Exxon shareholders with 70 percent ownership of the new company.
• Exxon CEO Lee Raymond said that the first year of the merger will not affect profitability and shareholders can expect additions to their earnings in the following years.
•  Historical stock records shows that ExxonMobil's total return has progressively risen since the merger in 1999.
•  The Motley Fool stated that the ExxonMobil stock has been very successful and given its investors lucrative dividends since the merger.
• ExxonMobil's stock was qualified as a Dividend Aristocrat and proven to give its investors dividend increases even in difficult times.

CUSTOMER DYNAMICS

• Citizen.org asserted that the mega-merger between Exxon and Mobil (as well as other oil giants) will push oil prices to an artificial high, affecting consumers.
• This is due to less competitive markets and an unwritten agreement between key players not to challenge each other.
• However, industry analysts countered that consumer fears of high prices were unfounded.
• On the contrary, oil and gas companies needed to get big to account for the high capital needed in oil exploration and drilling.
• Antitrust commissions also oversee mergers and force huge companies to sell stations, refineries and gas terminals to sustain competition.
• The Federal Trade Commission also stated that mergers benefit consumers by enabling companies to operate more efficiently.
• The ExxonMobil merger took place within the merger mania period among other oil giant companies.
• These included the BP-Amoco merger in 1998, BP Amoco-Arco in 2000, Chevron-Texaco in 2001, Conoco-Phillips in 2002, and ConocoPhillips-Burlington in 2005.
• Due to the similar mergers happening among competitors, consumers may not have had enough reason to switch brands.
• ExxonMobil also preserved brand loyalty by keeping both brands separate.

BRANDING AND LOGO

• ExxonMobil decided to keep both brands following the merger to preserve brand loyalty.
• It spent $27.7 million marketing Mobil and $7.2 million marketing Exxon separately in 2000.
• However, the company extended Mobil's Speedpass customer card to Exxon stations, providing customers a common reference point.
• Analysts observed that bringing a new brand meant changing thousands of gas station signs across the US.
• It would also necessitate introducing a whole new image to both companies' customer base.
•  Exxon Mobil spokeswoman Jeanne Miller said at the time, "When we get down to it, it's the customers. It just made business sense to keep both brands."
• The new company logo introduced in 1999 was a simple combination of Exxon and Mobil.
• The combination preserved each brand name's typeface.
•  Mobil's logo color was changed to Exxon's hue for uniformity under the merger.
• Today the company continues to market fuels and lubricants for Exxon and Mobil separately, as well as a new brand/product ExxonMobil Chemical.
• ExxonMobil's current brands are Exxon, Mobil, Esso and ExxonMobil Chemical.

OVERVIEW: AIRBORNE EXPRESS ACQUISITION BY DHL

• DHL completed its acquisition of Airborne, Inc.'s ground operations for approximately $1.05 billion in 2003.
• Even though DHL Worldwide Express Inc. acquired Airborne for all its ground operations, Airborne retained its air operations and evolved into a separate company called ABX Air Inc.
• After completing the acquisition of Airborne, Inc.'s ground operations, ABX Air and DHL were to enter into an ACMI agreement in which ABX Air was to provide air service to DHL. Also, ABX was to provide third-party services.

IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES AFTER ACQUIRING AIRBORNE EXPRESS

• The acquisition of Airborne Express by DHL Worldwide Express was expected to result in increased opportunity and stability for employees.
• The acquisition also meant additional resources necessary for things like marketing efforts, global branding, and advertising for employees.
• No changes were to occur for employees benefits such as health, vacation, pension and 401(k).
• After 5 years of operation since DHL acquired Airborne Express in 2003, the company announced that it is going to discontinue its air and ground operations which would result in 9,500 job cuts.
• The 9,500 job cuts by DHL were in addition to 5,400 job reductions announced in early 2008. The company explained that after these job losses, between 3,000 and 4,000 employees were to remain at DHL's U.S. operations.
• DHL further hinted on its plans to close its U.S. ground hubs and reduce the number of stations from 412 to 103.

IMPACT ON INVESTORS AFTER ACQUIRING AIRBORNE EXPRESS

• After DHL acquired Airborne Express, Airborne retained its air operations and spun off into a separate company called ABX Air Inc. ABX Air was to be publicly owned by Airborne shareholders, who were to get one ABX Air share for every Airborne share they have.
• DHL was never able to grab a significant share in the U.S. market even after acquiring Airborne Express.
• The company folded its domestic U.S. business, writing down $3.9 billion to cover severance and restructuring costs, and pushing its parent company, Deutsche Post, to a $1 billion loss for the year.
• DHL lost $10 billion in the venture.
• After 5 years of acquisition, the air and ground operations of DHL were discontinued closing most of the old Airborne Express hubs.

IMPACT ON CUSTOMERS AFTER ACQUIRING AIRBORNE EXPRESS

• More customers were to benefit from DHL's unrivaled express and logistics services which help international shippers do business more quickly, efficiently, and competitively.
• Customers were to benefit from a broad range of express delivery and logistics and bring new options to the small to mid-sized U.S. marketplace.
• After 5 years since DHL acquired Airborne Express, the company discontinued its domestic operations in the United States and this resulted to the customers losing the third viable option for shipping, and the lowest-priced one at that.

HOW LONG IT TOOK FOR THE TRANSFORMATION TO OCCUR WITHIN THE BRAND

• The combined companies were to do business under the name DHL Worldwide Express and this took place immediately after the agreement was finalized.

OVERVIEW ON HOW THE BRAND ELEMENTS (LOGO, COLORS, ETC.) CHANGED

• ABX Air unveiled its logo in 2003.

HELPFUL FINDINGS ON HOW THE BRAND ELEMENTS CHANGED

• Airborne.com was the home domain of Airborne Express and this was sold to Airborne International B.V. of The Hague, in the Netherlands after the acquisition of Airborne Express by DHL.
• According to screenshots.com, sometimes in 2013, when one visited the domain name Airborne.com, he/she was being forwarded to DHL’s site only.

RESEARCH STRATEGY

EMPLOYEE DYNAMICS

• Employees complained about mandatory trainings that are not related to their jobs.
• In a Business Insider report, it was said that some DirecTV staffers felt like their innovative culture was put out.
• After the acquisition, AT&T required DirecTV employees to participate in the same training required of all AT&T employees so that when AT&T union contract workers strike, service would go uninterrupted.

INVESTOR DYNAMICS

• Due to the large debt that AT&T has after its acquisition of DIrecTV, investors are selling their stocks.
• AT&T gives a high 6.7% dividend to attract investors, but due to the stock lost, experts even suggest selling the stocks.
• AT&T's credit rating downgrading below investment grade means a risk for company investors—shareholders and bondholder.
• Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings currently rate the debt two levels above junk for AT&T.

CUSTOMER DYNAMICS

•  On October 2018, on its third-quarter earnings report, AT&T revealed that DIrecTV has a 346.000 net loss in subscribers, which then dragged AT&T shares lower.
• Viewers are abandoning the pricey TV packages for cheaper streaming video services such as Netflix and Hulu.
• The AT&T-DirecTV merger statement said nothing about lower prices or better customer service, which is of high priorities for most consumers, thus giving low scores for these companies in the consumer survey.
• According to Delara Derakhshani, policy counsel for Consumers Union, they have been sceptical about the AT&T-DirecTV merger from the beginning.

BRAND TRANSFORMATION / CHANGE IN BRAND ELEMENTS

•  Five months after the merger (January 2016), DirectTV changed its logo by adopting the blue and white globe logo used by AT&T instead of the blue and white "D" logo used since 1990.
• The DirecTV name was kept until July 2019.
• In July 2019, four years after the merger, the DirectTV Now became AT&T TV NOW.

RESEARCH STRATEGY

BB&T AND SUNTRUST BANKS

• In February 2019, BB&T and SunTrust Banks announced that they would be merging to become the sixth-largest US bank based on assets and deposits, going by the name Truist.
• It is a rare "merger of equals," as it is a stock-only deal between the two banks. SunTrust shareholders will receive 1.295 shares of BB&T for each SunTrust share they own.
• BB&T shareholders will own 57% and SunTrust shareholders will own 43% of the combined bank.
• The transaction between BB&T and SunTrust to form Truist is still subject to regulatory approvals. According to a BB&T press release, "BB&T and SunTrust remain separate and independent companies until the transaction closes."

• At the management and board level, there will be a 50-50 split between both companies. BB&T's CEO Kelly King will serve as chairman and CEO of the new company until September 2021 and continue on the board till 2023, while SunTrust CEO William Rogers will serve first as president and chief operating officer until September 2021, then as CEO, and later, as chairman.
• Key figures from both deals expressed optimism at the news of the merger, stating that it would provide the combined entity with the size and scale to compete with other big banks.
• Of the two banks' 3,100 branches, about 740 of them are within two miles of each other. This indicates that at some point there will have to be branch closures and accelerate job loss for the employees there.
• However, even though branches in places such as Allentown might bear the brunt of expansion, some still believe that there is little overlap of branches at the local level and branch closing does not seem like an immediate priority.

• The announcement of the merger led to an overall positive sentiment from the markets, with SunTrust and BB&T stock prices jumping by almost 12% and 10%, respectively.
• The merger's impact upon completion is expected to some be met with uncertainty in the banking sector.
• To allay concerns from the public, the banks also announced that they would commit $60 billion in loans and investments in low- to moderate-income communities over the next 3 years, signifying to both investors and customers that the bank plans to invest, and the merger is not a scheme aimed just at getting bigger.

• Customer sentiment about the merger has been mostly positive. Various letters have been written to the Federal Reserve by corporate customers and smaller businesses who have established partnerships with both banks endorsing the merger.
• However, the new name of the bank has led to some negative backlash in the media.

• Although it has been agreed that the holding company for the merged banks will be named Truist Financial Corporation and the combined bank will be named Truist Bank, the new brand logo, typography, and other branding elements have not yet been released.
• Despite this, there has already been some reasonable backlash to the selected name of the new brand. The reaction to the new name online has been overwhelmingly negative. Many customers and professional branding concerns voiced their displeasure with it. Many have compared their effort at rebranding with that of Tribune Publishing. They had to revert to the previous name after their rebrand was not favorably received by readers.