Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) get a lot of interest among companies' executive leadership, on Wall Street, and in the press. The deals can be very interesting and exciting with great potential for business gains, many intriguing back-stories, and lots of deal-making strategy involved. However, it is estimated that more than 70% of M&A deals fail to add to shareholder value, but instead are destroyers of shareholder value.

Why do you think that is?

What is an example of a successful M&A deal? How about an unsuccessful one? What differentiates the good deals from the bad deals?

As a business leader, what can you do to ensure that M&A transactions (big or small) are successful?