Research has shown that mergers and acquisitions during the past two decades have met with mixed success- with a majority appropriately labeled as ineffective.

Required

a. What processes should an organization have in place to evaluate the economics of a proposed acquisition?

b. What are the implications to the audit if the processes identified above are not in place?

c. What are the difficulties associated with a merger? More specifically, why is it so difficult to make mergers work the way they were intended to work? What factors should the auditor look at to determine if it appears that a merger is coming together successfully?