The Urge to Merge
There are numerous reasons why these transactions occur...
On December 18th, 2013, Amadeus announced that they had reached an agreement to acquire Newmarket International for the nice round sum of half a billion dollars. Industry observers unanimously perceived this announcement as a Big Deal, demonstrating a massive commitment by Amadeus, known primarily as a Euro-centric GDS player, to the hotel technology space. With this investment of $500,000,000.00, Amadeus bought the Newmarket International management team, product portfolio, expertise in the Force.com platform, $110 million in revenue and installed base of 22,000 hotel properties.
After congratulating the good people at Newmarket for the transaction, the next thought that came to mind was to explore the various reasons one company might choose to buy another, or why a company would agree to be acquired.