M&A advisers flock to Europe KKR targets Europe When two's a crowd can three succeed? The conventional wisdom is that euroland corporate culture is going through what US capitalism experienced in the 1980s. The surge in mergers and acquisitions in early 1999 seems to show that efficiency, focus and shareholder value are European managers' new goals. Well, only up to a point. Marcus Walker looks beneath the surface of some of this year's biggest deals and finds two driving forces are old-fashioned clan rivalry and the pursuit of empire.
For a continent converting to shareholder value, Europe's current epic takeover struggles are a peculiar bunch. A merger of bloated French banks involves no sackings. A fight between two French magnates in a lax Dutch arena for an Italian fashion house largely ignores the firm's US shareholders. And an Italian telecoms giant with a proven reformer in charge is subject to a...
