Cross-Border Mergers & Acquisitions
This summer, I have been working in the Mergers & Acquisitions department at Deloitte Israel. Mostly, I have been working with Israeli companies looking to grow their business inorganically by acquiring another company outside of Israel. In my opinion, this differs a lot from M&A in the US as a lot of companies are acquiring other companies in the US. Concedingly, many US companies do acquire companies outside of the US when they are looking to expand into other regions. However, this is not as prevalent as in Israel. Something that I have been hearing a lot is that Israeli companies are outward-looking. The population of Israel is only about 7.5 million people, making it a very small market for Israeli companies. Therefore, many Israeli companies do not consider Israel their primary target market. Instead, they usually target the United States, as well as Europe and Asia. Israeli companies have been doing very well by targeting the US. Most notably, Waze, the Israeli social navigation company, was acquired by Google in 2013 for $1.3 billion, the largest-ever exit for an Israeli company. Cross-border M&A, whether on the sell-side or buy-side, is very natural for Israeli companies to undergo as they don’t see Israel as a primary target market and can be an attractive target company for global acquirers. I have been screening companies in both Europe and the United States on behalf of our clients. This experience has made me learn a lot not only about the industry that a company that I am screening on behalf of, but also about the landscape of that industry within different regions and countries.