How do companys contact other companys? Like take Cisco router systems, they recently bought some other company. If you were Cisco, how do you tell the other company you wish to buy them? Do you call up customer service or something? (I know that cant be right…) Letter pehaps? How does it work?
mike
I would imagine, if you were one of the companIES involved, you would write a letter to the person responsible for handling such matters, the president of the company’s board of directors, that says, “Hello. We want to buy you.”
I thought to buy a company you need to buy the shares which would be done in the stock market.
There are any number of strategies for initiating a take-over, depending on whether it is a cooperative one (like a merger) or a hostile one. In the former case, usually the CEO of one company (or someone representing the CEO) would contact the CEO of the other company; however, the first official contact might be through the legal department rather than through the CEOs.
Note that a “company” is only an entity in some senses: a “company” cannot make contact with another company, only individuals in the company can. And, of course, the two companies could have had lots of contacts at operational levels way before the CEOs make contact about a merger.
If companies need to make official contact about other issues, they can happen at almost any level – like, if the purchasing department wants to negotiate a special deal with a supplier, the contact would happen at that level.
Also, keep in mind that the CEO’s themselves have almost always met well in advance of any merger discussions. They’ve been to the same industry conferences, investors meetings, etc.
One of the things executives think about before proposing a merger is how the managements of the merged companies will get along, so a CEO is likely to have met many other members of the other company’s management, too.
So the way a merger often occurs is that CEO A might take CEO B aside at the Allen & Co. investment conference (for example) and say “Hey, Mike, I’m thinking that we might do better together than apart.”
Swab friedo…at least you did’nt blanty say “hey are you stupid?” like so many others on this bored have taken the liberty to do. I see how this whole thing works now accept, say im just a citizen but I have heaps of cash and I want to buy say…some largish company that is not on the stock market, how would I do that? Or say I have an idea for that company?
mike
If it’s not on the stock market, then it’s probably privately held. So the simplest way would probably to find out who owns it (may be more than one person) and offer to buy the company (or a controlling interest). Or if they have a mergers an acquisitions department, you could contact them.