How Serial Acquirers Beat the Odds
The Most Successful Acquirers Build Repeatable Capabilities While Focusing on Key Clients and People
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October 30, 2026
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Completing a transaction is only the starting point for creating value from it. The most successful serial acquirers we see are the ones that understand that acquisition-led growth depends on more than finding and completing the right deals. For transactions where integration benefits are a key part of the investment case, top performers treat merger integration as a repeatable organisational capability, rather than a one-off project. Over time, they build the processes, governance, leadership experience and institutional knowledge needed to integrate businesses efficiently, realise value faster and strengthen the organisation with each transaction.
Many companies can complete an acquisition, but repeatedly absorbing new businesses while maintaining business performance, retaining key talent and delivering on the investment case is where the biggest challenge lies. Across the market, the odds are famously steep: study after study shows that between 70% and 90% of mergers fail to realise their expected value.1 Many acquisitions introduce new customers, products, technologies, talent and capabilities, while others also add complexity in the form of systems, processes, governance structures and ways of working. Left unmanaged, that complexity accumulates over time. Organisations that consistently outperform recognise this challenge early and invest in integration capabilities designed to manage that change from one deal to the next. This finding was also evident in our Value Creation Index, with 46% of high performers rating their M&A process as ‘highly efficient’ compared to 29% of others.2
Serial acquirers who learn from experience are better positioned to manage this hurdle. They know which decisions need to be made early, where integration is most likely to stall and what evidence leaders need before approving major changes. With each acquisition, their integration approach becomes more focused, practical and effective.
Three priorities underpin this advantage: keeping integration focused on the investment case, building the capacity and capability to execute integrations successfully and establishing governance structures that support informed decision-making. Across all three, successful acquirers focus on reducing uncertainty and helping customers and employees navigate change with confidence.
Keep Integration Focused on the Investment Case
Every acquisition begins with a strategic rationale and an investment case. The objective may be geographic expansion, access to new customers, acquisition of technology or capabilities, operational synergies or some combination of all four. Successful merger integration requires a shared understanding of how value will be created, the degree of integration required, the operational changes needed to realise that value and the timeframe over which those changes will be delivered.
Most investment cases combine expected synergies, growth opportunities and strategic benefits, with additional opportunities often emerging after close. Some benefits can be realised quickly through procurement efficiencies or operational synergies. Others, such as revenue growth, technology enablement, capability transfer or operating model transformation, may require several phases of integration before they become visible.
For example, during the integration of two complementary European-headquartered telecoms businesses, where the target was a carve-out from a US parent, initial operational efficiencies were captured relatively quickly. However, we saw that longer-term value depended on exiting multiyear network Transitional Service Agreements (TSAs), which unlocked full product portfolio rationalisation and network optimisation, bringing new solutions to customers.
In our experience, organisations that consistently create value maintain a relentless focus on the drivers that justified the deal and track progress against them throughout the integration. While functional teams naturally focus on systems, processes and Day One readiness, leadership teams remain focused on the outcomes they expect to achieve.
A common challenge is ensuring integration activities do not become disconnected from the investment case. Completing a systems migration, implementing a new process or achieving a project milestone may signal progress, but those activities only matter if they contribute to the value the acquisition was intended to create.
Leaders need to be clear about the outcomes they are trying to achieve and who is accountable for delivering on them, whilst relying on functional experts to design the operational changes required to get there. In this context, synergies only become value when the actions needed to deliver them are understood, planned and executed.
Manage Capacity and Capability Avoid Them Becoming Constraints
Many organisations spend considerable time assessing whether they have sufficient financial capacity to complete an acquisition. Far fewer apply the same level of rigour to leadership and integration capability.
In our experience, serial acquirers benefit from managing both capacity and capability. Capacity addresses whether sufficient resources and leadership bandwidth exist to undertake the work. Capability addresses whether the organisation has access to people who have successfully delivered in similar situations.
This distinction matters because acquisitions rarely happen in isolation. New opportunities often emerge alongside transformation programmes, technology investments, operating model changes and other strategic priorities. Leadership teams therefore need to consider not only whether a transaction makes strategic and financial sense, but also whether the organisation has the capacity and capability to absorb it whilst continuing to deliver business performance.
To be effective, acquirers should start considering integration implications during diligence because decisions made before signing often determine how quickly value can be realised afterwards. Leadership structures, key appointments and Day One decisions all influence how rapidly the combined organisation can begin functioning effectively and delivering on the investment case.
One of the most underestimated aspects of an integration is the impact of uncertainty on customers, suppliers and employees. From the point at which employees become aware of a transaction until they understand their future role and place within the organisation, attention is naturally divided between business performance and personal uncertainty.
For example, following the announcements of two mergers, one of a European consumer products manufacturer and another of a commercial media services provider, we observed that key leadership and management appointments remained unresolved for months. This created a long period of uncertainty for many key individuals, resulting in increased focus on reporting lines, future responsibilities and company politics rather than on running the business. The longer this period of uncertainty persists, the greater the risk that focus shifts away from operational delivery and the objectives of the transaction.
Experienced acquirers therefore place significant emphasis on accelerating organisation and leadership decisions and creating appropriate short- to medium-term incentives. The objective is to shorten the period of uncertainty and enable people to refocus on customers, operations and value creation as quickly as possible.
Use Governance to Make Better Decisions
Governance is often associated with steering committees, reporting packs and programme reviews. Successful serial acquirers use governance to improve decision-making and drive value creation.
First, leadership teams need clarity on who makes decisions and what authority they have. Some decisions are best centralised to create consistency, control and scale, while others benefit from local operational insight and experience. Without that clarity, decisions can be delayed, escalated unnecessarily or revisited multiple times, increasing execution risk and slowing value capture.
Second, governance requires visibility. Beyond status reports and milestone updates, decision-makers need to see how value is being created, where risks are emerging and whether the organisation is ready for key decisions. In practice, this means moving beyond questions such as “Are we on schedule?” and focusing on questions such as “Are we achieving the outcomes we expected?” and “What could prevent us from realising value?”
Finally, governance needs to ensure that accountability is matched with authority. A common challenge in merger integration is confusing progress with readiness. A workstream leader may report that activities are complete. A project plan may show that milestones have been achieved. Technical teams may confirm that a system has been configured and tested.
None of these facts necessarily demonstrates that the organisation is ready.
The critical question for governance forums is simple: What evidence demonstrates readiness?
Before approving major go/no-go decisions, leadership teams should have confidence that critical business processes have been tested, operational teams have validated the proposed change, risks have been understood and mitigated, and the organisation can continue to serve customers successfully after implementation.
Experienced serial acquirers understand this because they have seen both well-executed and poorly executed integrations. They know that strong governance improves decisions and gives leaders confidence that the organisation is genuinely ready to move forward.
Turn Experience Into an Organisational Advantage
The differentiator is increasingly not the transaction itself, but the organisation's ability to integrate businesses repeatedly, create value consistently and learn from each acquisition.
The most successful serial acquirers consistently beat the odds by embedding three core disciplines into their operational DNA:
- Anchoring every integration workstream to the core investment case, rather than to project milestones alone.
- Ensuring the right balance between capacity and capability so that leadership bandwidth and execution experience never become constraints.
- Establishing governance structures that support informed decision-making before major change throughout the transaction lifecycle.
Underpinning all three is an unwavering priority: protecting customers, who represent the source of value, and supporting the people who must deliver it.
When organisations build the muscle memory to protect those relationships while executing with discipline, merger integration ceases to be an unmanageable risk. It becomes a sustainable, repeatable competitive advantage.
The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and not necessarily the views of FTI Consulting, Inc., its management, its subsidiaries, its affiliates, or its other professionals.
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October 30, 2026
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