When I was partners with Seymour G. Siegel and Paul H. Rich in our New York City practice, we were always approached by larger firms about merging into them. We never turned down the opportunities to meet but nothing ever felt right. I eventually left to form a smaller practice with Peter A. Weitsen.
One comment made by Paul Rich seemed very cogent and always stuck in my mind, and I want to share it here. We were having a decent lunch meeting and, at one point, the three people we were meeting all looked at their watches and remarked that they needed to get back to the office to get some things out. We said our goodbyes, and they left. We remained behind to relax a little before heading back to the office. Paul remarked that they were definitely not for us. We asked why and he said, "The people we should merge with should not have to be in a position where they need to rush back to their office to get something out." Brilliant! That summed it up and we put them out of our minds.
Now it is possible they did not like us and that's why they left, but it didn't seem like that. They appeared rushed during the lunch and did not seem to relax.
Further, the discussion did not go the way we would have liked it to. They expressed excessive concern about how we handled our workload and staff supervision. They weren't too happy that all of our younger staff, i.e., those with us less than five years, had all been hired out of school without prior experience. If that was expressed today, I would automatically eliminate them as any type of partner possibility with me. They also indicated too much emphasis on our staff timekeeping and too little interest in the type of clients we had, their longevity with us, and how well we serviced them. They were not for us.
These partners did not seem to know how to delegate properly or train staff and appeared to spend too much time replacing the revolving door of "experienced" staff that stayed for short periods rather than growing and developing their future stars.
A merger is a marriage of the practices and also of each partner involved. These are big deals and need careful consideration. Usually the initial lunches go better than this one, but when it becomes obvious they won't work, as here, it is a favor and saves a lot of time.
Paul's remark is still engraved in my brain, and it hit the mark right on. It also added another thing to consider with future merger candidates.
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