What Does an Acquisitions Manager Do?

Essentially, an acquisitions manager's role revolves around giving advice to businesses seeking to acquire other businesses and/or those being targeted for acquisition. His or her job may require different tasks that may include assessing the business under consideration for acquisition, structuring the deal, arranging financing, negotiating the terms, evaluating the price and conditions of the acquisition, and more. Also, the acquisitions manager may need to work with other professionals like lawyers in order to address all the legal issues, and accountants who deal with taxation issues among other factors.

Among various tasks, an acquisitions manager may be expected to conduct due diligence in order to properly appraise the fair value of the business being targeted for acquisition. He or she may be required to come up with the best acquisition strategies and provide advice on the best way to structure the deal and how to finance it. To finance the deal, for instance, he or she will determine the best proportions of equity and debt financing. Equity financing basically comes from the issuance of stocks whereby the buyer is entitled a share of the company. Debt financing, on the other hand, may be done through bond issuance, bank loans, and other debt instruments.

Generally, an acquisitions manager assesses the targeted business in order to appraise its intrinsic value, which is basically the real worth of the business. The assessment will normally help determine factors that may be favorable or unfavorable should an acquisition take place. Thus, after a thorough assessment of the business in question, the manager will normally be in a position to give advice on whether acquiring the particular business is a good move.

In some cases, there is what is known as a hostile acquisition, where the acquiring company and its target do not see eye to eye. This may be caused by various factors, though generally, the target company's management or board of directors do not wish for the acquisition to take place for various reasons. In short, when a company is a hostile acquisition target, it may hire an acquisitions manager to help it design a defense strategy in order to thwart the effort as it does not desire to be taken over. Moreover, the acquisitions manager may be required to work with other professionals, such as lawyers and accountants, to ensure that all aspects of a particular deal are addressed.

Furthermore, a career in acquisitions management typically demands one to have the skills and desire to deal with numbers, to be detail-oriented, to think critically, and to have strong communication and interpersonal skills, among other things. Working with acquisitions also requires an individual to be very driven, as this job normally entails working long hours and sometimes weekends. Some of the typical qualifications for this field include undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in disciplines like finance, accounting and law.