I have enjoyed reading Thomas Friedman’s work over the years, but I have to say that I am not a big believer in the Flat World hypothesis. Although intellectually appealing in many ways, it is not supported by scientific evidence. Decades of international business research has demonstrated that companies that span national boundaries face enormous risks and challenges. Moreover, a casual glance at the popular press on just about any given day provides countless examples of companies whose international expansion efforts have foundered because they failed to account for the additional costs imposed by institutional distance (for background, see my posts So You Want to Do Business in  a Developing Country, Tata and Jaguar, Tesco’s Venture into the U.S.).

In fact, just this week I received an email from Mike Malone of ABC News calling my attention to a recent article addressing the Flat World debate (see Navigating a Flat and Bumpy World). Mike writes:

Despite the title of a best-selling book of a few years back, it turns out that the world isn’t flat. And, despite all of the leveling forces being unleashed by the Internet, global business and social networks, it won’t be getting any flatter in our lifetimes.

But don’t believe the growing legions of naysayers to Tom Friedman’s book either, because nearly all of them begin by accepting his underlying premise … and then set out to debunk it by showing how pockets of entrenched cultural differences won’t succumb to Twitter and the iPhone.

As many recent stories have shown, if your business follows Friedman’s advice you are very likely to get blindsided by markets with rules that are alien — even antithetical — to our own.

Although Mike writes mostly about how technology impacts globalization and tries to find common ground between those who adhere to a Flat World view and those who subscribe to a Spiky World view, I thought his opening salvo (quoted above) was spot on.

Another good example of how the world is not so flat can be found in Qantas’s latest trouble in Vietnam (see Jetstar Creates a Jet Stir in Vietnam, ht Steve). According to Crikey:

The $US50 million ($A53.9 million) Qantas investment in Jetstar Pacific has flown into an ideological chasm in the ranks of the Communist Party and government in Vietnam and it isn’t clear how it can escape.

…ideologues in the [Vietnamese Communist] party are waging a glorious struggle against the oppression of the people and their cultural identity from the subversive forces of global capitalism, or words to that effect.

And if that weren’t enough evidence, last week BA and Iberia formally announced that they will merge (see Uniting in the Sky). What strikes me as interesting is not the deal itself, as I actually think that this deal makes a fair bit of operational sense. The potential for synergies are enormous. However, what struck me as odd is that BA and Iberia will be maintaining separate corporate offices and operations (one in Spain and one in the UK):

…while the pair will combine their businesses they will maintain separate corporate operations. This will allow both to maintain their roles as the national flag-carriers while keeping valuable bilateral international landing rights that go along with that status.

That may be; however, maintaining separate operations will also keep their costs elevated and reduce their competitiveness in a market that is often characterized as global. If companies can’t find a way to benefit from economies of scale in a global, homogeneous goods market like the airline industry (or even the automobile industry), …how flat is the world, really??

The Economist posted a nice chart this week of the number of mentions of the word “Globalization” in their magazine since 1979 (see Going Global).

It seems that the number of mentions grew briskly through the dawning of the new millennium, with a drop off after the dotcom bust. The number of mentions picked up once again from 2005-2007, but has tailed off since the start of the financial crisis.

In order to see if these numbers were consistent with mentions of the term “Globalization” at large, I checked the number of mentions in Google Trends.

Although the Google Trends data go back only to 2004, somewhat interestingly, it seems that Globalization as a search term has been decreasing steadily from 2004-2009.

I wonder if the differences across charts speak to the differences in interests between the readership of a specialized economics magazine and the general populous, …or if The Economist is missing the boat, dedicating more time and attention to topics that readers are increasingly uninterested in?

Personally, I think Globalization is not only an interesting phenomenon in its own right, but given the global nature of the financial crisis, an especially timely topic for debate. It should not be a surprise where I stand on that debate. I have long been a proponent of Globalization (see Globalization and its Discontents, Globalization Revisited, or Interview in the Effective Executive).

Oops, I may have just answered my own question.

Ford revealed today that Geely, the Chinese automobile manufacturer, has emerged as the most likely suitor for its Volvo unit (see Geely Behind Ford’s Plan to Sell Volvo). According to Motor Trend, the price tag will be somewhere in the $2 Billion range.

Holding aside the sale price, if this deal goes through it would become the third high-profile purchase of a Western automobile manufacturer by a Chinese firm this year (Geely’s purchase of Volvo, Beijing Automotive’s participation in the Saab deal, and Sichuan Tengzhong’s acquisition of Hummer from GM).

Chinese firms are acquiring Western automobile manufacturers in an attempt to upgrade capabilities. They lag far behind the leading Japanese, US, European, and Korean auto manufacturers in technological capabilities, and the acquisition of Western firms represents an attempt to close that gap in R&D, design, styling, sales, marketing, and production.

However, as I noted in a recent interview in the Effective Executive magazine, this acquisitive behavior is not unique to the automobile industry. Chinese companies have increasingly been acquiring Western companies in a variety of industries (e.g., Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s PC division and TCL’s acquisition of Thomson’s TV division), all in an effort to close a still significant capabilities gap with developed country firms.

As I mentioned in that interview (see Interview in the Effective Executive):

When I think about China, Japan, and South Korea, certainly some similarities can be drawn. All three followed an export-led growth path to prosperity. However, once a certain level of prosperity had been achieved through trade, the three countries diverged with respect to international investment. South Korean firms have generally followed a more organic growth strategy – eschewing acquisitions of foreign targets in favor of building businesses from scratch. Japanese firms followed a similar strategy up to a point…Insofar as China is concerned, although we are in the early stages of China’s international expansion, it seems so far that Chinese firms are following a more growth-through-acquisition type of strategy…

My sense is that this has a lot to do with the capabilities of the firms from these countries. That is, by the time Japanese and South Korean firms began to expand, they did so from a position of technological strength. For this reason, they were able to organically extend existing advantages to other countries. China, by contrast, is expanding from a relatively weak technological position not only vis-à-vis Japan and South Korea, but also vis-à-vis the rest of the developed world. In this sense then, Chinese firms are embarking on a strategy of acquisition in order to acquire the technological capabilities their firms currently lack.

Seen through that lens, it is obvious why Chinese automobile manufacturers are interested in acquiring Volvo, Saab, and Hummer. However, the fact remains that they are purchasing extremely troubled operations in an industry plagued with overcapacity (even in China) at a time when when the demand for automobiles (certainly in the developed world) looks increasingly uncertain (see Auto Industry’s Big Little Problem).

As a proponent of free trade and globalization, I view the acquisition of Western companies by Chinese companies as a welcome development. However, given the auto industry’s ills, I wonder whether these Chinese acquirers will be able to derive value from their tired, beaten, and battered Western subsidiaries, …irrespective of the price.

Time will tell.

Below are some links and teasers to articles that I found interesting:

Selling Foreign Goods in China (The Economist)

Every year, says Paul French, head of Access Asia, a research firm based in Shanghai, the same company buys the same report from him on the market for a particular product in China. That is because each year the company in question sends a new executive to China with instructions to break into the local market, who soon departs in despair—having failed to find an opening given the (brief) time and (insufficient) resources allotted.

The promise—and frequent disappointment—of doing business in China has been a common theme since at least the 19th century, when weavers in Manchester were said to dream of adding a few inches to every shirttail in China.

It is incredibly difficult to do business in developing markets (see So You Want to Do Business in a Developing Country), and China is no exception. The interesting thing to me about entry into developed markets is how managers systematically overestimate the benefits and underestimate the costs. And sadly, I am not aware of any evidence that suggests that we are becoming better at making these entry decisions over time.

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Shazam, Maker of Phone App, Draws Investment (New York Times)

Cellphone applications can turn your phone into a mobile dictionary, help you find your way when you are lost on a hiking trail and identify mystery songs on the radio. But can they make significant money?

That question has been hounding the entrepreneurs and venture capitalists behind the start-up companies that create the software programs.

An interesting ditty about how making apps may actually be a commercially viable business. Be sure to look for their IPOs in an equity market near you…

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Schumpeter Centenary (The Economist)

The centenary of Joseph Schumpeter’s birth has not brought forth an avalanche of academic tributes and retrospectives. There is no Schumpeter industry to compare with the one on Keynes. No pop biographies. No “Schumpeter and the Post-Schumpeterians”. Yet his academic reputation at the height of his powers was of the same order, and the impact of his analysis continues to be strongly felt.

An interesting look at the history of an influential economist. He certainly left his mark on the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship.

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Wall Street Smarts (New York Times, ht Neysa)

“IF you really want to know why the financial system nearly collapsed in the fall of 2008, I can tell you in one simple sentence.”

The statement came from a man sitting three or four stools away from me in a sparsely populated Midtown bar, where I was waiting for a friend.

“O.K.,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”

“The financial system nearly collapsed,” he said, “because smart guys had started working on Wall Street.”

Hysterical anecdote (with more than a grain of truth) about the near-collapse of the financial system (see Krugman’s post on same)

Happy weekend everyone!!

The folks at the Effective Executive magazine asked to interview me last month for an upcoming issue of the magazine. I was asked to share my thoughts about the global economy, the financial crisis, and the growth of developing countries.

Below are excerpts from that interview.

[Y]our current research centers on the management and economics of international expansion. However, with the US financial crisis hitting the world economy hard, even the developed countries seem to be contemplating on going very slow on globalization. And in fact, there is a wide rhetoric about developed world (including most of the G-15 countries) embracing protectionist attitudes. Do you think such a move would indeed undo all the progress that has been made in the last decade?

The benefits of globalization are many. Not only does globalization allow countries to specialize in the productive activities in which they have an advantage, but it also provides an important conduit for the exchange of ideas across countries. As my research points out, the exchange of ideas across countries is critical to innovation and growth.

Therefore, I think it would not only be a mistake for countries to enact protectionist policies, but in the extreme, such policies could threaten the currently fragile economic recovery. Economies have become so intertwined that restricting the cross-border flow of goods and services (and capital) could lead to severe disruptions for developed and developing countries alike. For students of history, a refresher on the impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (and protectionist policies adopted by other world economies) during the Great Depression might serve as a guide for the potential deleterious consequences of protectionism.

That said however, I think we are a far stretch from undoing all the progress brought about by globalization over the past decade. I would like to believe that most interested parties (politicians, lawyers, managers, etc.) recognize how important globalization is to economic growth and prosperity. But certainly, the emerging level of protectionist rhetoric bears some monitoring.

What are the best practices that you have, over your distinguished research and teaching career, noticed regarding market entry strategies and international expansion strategies? Any interesting observations that you have noticed either from American companies, European Companies or Asian companies?

One of the things that I have noticed both in my research, and in my interactions with managers, is that managers often exaggerate the benefits and underestimate the difficulty of foreign expansion. Managers are quite good at identifying the demand-side benefits (the ability to tap into additional demand in the foreign market) and supply-side benefits (decreasing input and labor costs) associated with expansion, but systematically underestimate the additional costs imposed by operating businesses across differing institutional environments. Cultural, political, and economic environments vary greatly across countries. These differences manifest as real costs to firms, as research demonstrates that foreign entrants take a longer to set up operations in foreign countries, are forced to pay higher wages than local domestic competitors, run afoul of the law more frequently, and are generally less likely to succeed than similar domestic businesses.

All of this makes it critical for companies to have a sound understanding of how the cultural, political, and economic differences that they face across countries are likely to affect their business. Firms should first see if their business (and business model) is appropriate to the environment, understanding that it might be better, in some cases, not to enter a country. However, once they’ve decided which countries are appropriate targets for entry, they should choose an entry mode appropriate to the environment.

In my experience, I have found that those firms that perform best in this respect pay special attention to the cultural, political, and economic risk factors present in the host country.

Did you find any interesting insights from Chinese companies’ market entry strategies and their international expansion strategies as opposed to let’s say either South Korean or Japanese companies? Do you think Chinese companies are taking the same route as South Korean or Japanese companies followed several years ago or are they chalking out their unique strategies?

This is an interesting question. When I think about China, Japan, and South Korea, certainly some similarities can be drawn. All three followed an export-led growth path to prosperity. However, once a certain level of prosperity had been achieved through trade, the three countries diverged with respect to international investment. South Korean firms have generally followed a more organic growth strategy – eschewing acquisitions of foreign targets in favor of building businesses from scratch. Japanese firms followed a similar strategy up to a point. While many of Japan’s industrial firms preferred organic growth, Japanese firms acquired a vast portfolio of real estate holdings in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Insofar as China is concerned, although we are in the early stages of China’s international expansion, it seems so far that Chinese firms are following a more growth-through-acquisition type of strategy, acquiring foreign firms in both basic materials and high-tech industries.

My sense is that this has a lot to do with the capabilities of the firms from these countries. That is, by the time Japanese and South Korean firms began to expand, they did so from a position of technological strength. For this reason, they were able to organically extend existing advantages to other countries. China, by contrast, is expanding from a relatively weak technological position not only vis-à-vis Japan and South Korea, but also vis-à-vis the rest of the developed world. In this sense then, Chinese firms are embarking on a strategy of acquisition in order to acquire the technological capabilities their firms currently lack.

There was more to the interview. The soft copy is currently in newsstands (mostly in India). I am assuming they will post the interview on-line in a few months time. I will update when a link to the on-line version becomes available.

There are many compelling reasons that companies look to developing countries for growth. Less-developed countries hold the promise of large, fast-growing consumer markets (e.g., the BRICs); an abundance of cheap labor; and access to otherwise unavailable natural resources. Managers are often lured by this unbridled potential.

But there is a reason these countries are considered “developing” – largely because of the under-developed state of their institutional environments (see also Summer Reading: The Birth of Plenty).

Although developing markets hold jaw-dropping potential, it often remains just that. Realizing potential from developing markets is incredibly challenging. Companies often find that the institutional (cultural, political, and economic) environments in the developing markets they enter are not only underdeveloped in an absolute sense, but also in a relative sense. That is, the cultural, political, and economic environments in developing markets are so vastly different from anything that they encounter in their own domestic market (or even in other developed markets) that the costs involved in navigating them exceed even their most conservative estimates.

For this reason, companies from developed countries (and developing countries) often struggle when they enter developing countries. Their investments often fail to achieve desired returns; and worse, they can get mired in red ink.

Take IKEA, for instance. It entered Russia in 2000. Its operations are still struggling, largely due to the nature of Russia’s institutional environment, in which corruption and graft are commonplace. According to the New York Times (see IKEA Tries to Build a Case Against Russian Corruption):

Weeks before the opening of its flagship store outside Moscow in 2000, Ikea was approached by employees of a local utility company. If the Swedish retailer wanted to have electricity for its grand opening, it had to pay a bribe.

Instead, Ikea rented diesel generators large enough to power a shopping mall. The generators roared to life in a loud rebuke to the corrupt executives who thought they had the retailer cornered, and soon the utility turned on the power.

As Ikea opened stores across Russia, and became one of the most outspoken Western corporate critics of Russian corruption, renting generators to thwart extortion from power companies became standard practice. Ikea executives took great pride in their creative solution — renting generators “instead of putting ourselves into a squeeze,” as Christer Thordson, an Ikea board member and global director of legal affairs, put it in an interview.

But Russian graft may have proved more stubborn than Ikea.

The board of Ikea’s operating company, which is based in the Netherlands, has concluded that the Russian executive hired to manage the generators was taking kickbacks from the rental company to substantially inflate the price of the service. Ikea said that such a fraud could cost it about $196 million over two years.

MY COMMENT: IKEA was clever to find an alternative to its energy problem. Unfortunately, it discovered that graft is endemic to Russia’s culture.

Ikea canceled the contract and sought redress in Russian civil court. But in rulings over the last two weeks, Ikea has lost another 5 million euros in damages that the judges awarded the generator rental company for breach of contract.

“We have encountered something here that is outside the scope of what we normally encounter,” Mr. Thordson said, describing the global retailer’s situation in Russia. “I have never experienced anything like this.”

The ballooning costs built into these two deals were so large they eliminated all profit from Ikea’s business managing a dozen shopping centers in Russia in 2008, Mr. Thordson said.

Ikea lawyers, in a letter to the board of Ikea’s operating company, said the opposing lawyers seemed to know the outcome of these cases in advance, suggesting collusion with the judges…“I can only suspect there have been some irregularities behind the scenes,” Mr. Thordson said.

MY COMMENT: Not only did IKEA discover that corruption and graft are endemic to the culture, but that redress through the court system is dubious for foreigners. Even when the judicial system is not corrupted and there are laws on the books to protect the interests of foreign investors, laws on the books do not equate to laws enforced. There is still a large home-team bias.

IKEA learned these lessons the hard way. Unfortunately, problems such as these are all too common for foreign companies operating in developed countries.

Entry into developing countries is not for the faint at heart…

On my way out of town for a much needed break. Here are a few things that caught my attention:

1. American Graduates Finding Jobs in China
2. Hints of a Rebound in Global Trade
3. Interest Fizzles in Cash for Clunkers
4. Volkswagen and Porsche Close In on Deal to Combine
5. The Pay at the Top (Compensation for 200 Chief Executives)
6. Life without Landlines
7. An Early Stab at Quantitative Easing
8. US Homeowners Cut Asking Prices
9. GM and Chrysler in Different Paths to Recovery
10. Asia’s Astonishing Rebound?
11. A Debate over Cause and Effect (kind of geeky, but how can I not include an article that mentions instrumental variables)

Happy Weekend!

My intellectual research interests largely revolve around corporate strategy and international expansion. My dissertation, in fact, addressed how firms learn from international expansion (i.e., exporting), and how we can quantify such learning benefits. I was therefore extremely interested to read William J. Bernstein’s A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World when it was released last year. According to those who have actually read the book, it supposedly provides a fascinating account of the economic history of trade.

Now while I was really looking forward to reading that book, I stumbled across the book that preceded it – The Birth of Plenty: How the Prosperity of the Modern World was Created. As I read through the reviews of The Birth of Plenty, I thought I really ought to read it first. So I started reading The Birth of Plenty several months ago. I just finished it last week (terribly slow, I know).

But now that I have finally read it, I can say that it is, unquestionably, worth the read.

The Birth of Plenty is meant to be an economic history of the world. A tall order, for sure. But it delivers. Bernstein’s basic premise is that healthy institutions promote prosperity. In particular, countries must possess the following basic institutional ingredients in order to prosper:

1. Property Rights
2. The Scientific Method
3. Capital Markets
4. Effective Means of Transportation and Communication

After describing the historical development of each of these institutions, Bernsteim then goes on to describe which countries were able to develop such institutions, which countries were not, and to what effect. He then follows the path of economic development for several of those countries. He concludes that the four institutional factors are not only sufficient, but necessary, for a country to achieve prosperity. For Bernstein, it’s all or nothing. It’s not enough to have any one, two, or three of those institutions. All four must be in place at the same time.

Bernstein then makes what I think is the boldest conjecture of the book (with some, though scant, supporting evidence). He asserts that the aforementioned four institutional characteristics not only lead to prosperity, but that they also precede democracy, but not vice versa. That is, you can’t simply thrust democracy onto an institutionally underdeveloped country and expect prosperity to follow. The path runs from institutional development to prosperity to democracy because, as he argues, an increasingly wealthy population will accept nothing less.

In the interest of full disclosure, this book provided an especially timely and interesting read for me since I’ve been getting into institutions lately. Some of my most recent academic work explores how cultural, political, and economic institutions impact the differential development and performance of firms across countries. So maybe I’m a bit biased. Nevertheless, I thought it was a truly fascinating read. And not fascinating in the interesting, but dry, academic way. The storytelling was superb.

Up next: A Splendid Exchange…

For those of you who have followed this blog, you know that I have been very critical of Tata’s acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover (see Buyer’s Remorse and Tata and Jaguar/Rover Update). As I suggested when the deal was announced:

I think that this deal is destined to fail.

…For Tata, while bold, the deal just doesn’t make much sense. Aside from several luxury brands, an increased global presence, and some notoriety, I’m not sure what Tata gains. For example:

1. Where’s the synergy? Can Tata and Jaguar/LR share components, design, production, dealerships, or management? On its face, the synergies are just not there. But perhaps the investment was made for learning purposes, with Tata hoping to use Jaguar/LR capabilities to improve the quality and/or image of their existing automobiles. Possibly.
2. Can Tata rationalize Jaguar/LR’s production to make them more profitable? Actually, they cannot. They made pledges not to cut staff or close plants. And it’s unlikely that they would be able to reduce costs substantially by sourcing parts and supplies from India.
3. Can Tata right a ship that larger, more experienced, more formidable competitors had been unable to? In Jaguar and Land Rover, Tata is inheriting pieces of the old British Leyland Motors (Jaguar, Rover, Austin, Morris, etc.) that all tolled experienced (and continues to experience) more than 40 years of uncompetitiveness and underperformance. Quite simply, they are inheriting a lot of baggage (see Riding the Elephant for more background on British Leyland). It will be difficult for Tata to overcome this tremendous inertia.

Some analysts have argued that Jaguar and Land Rover were purchased on the cheap (at $2.3B minus $600M that Ford is throwing in to offset pension liabilities), and at the right time – when both Jaguar and Land Rover have a stable of new models about to hit the market (e.g., the Jaguar XF and the Land Rover LRX). These analysts point out that if these new models hit it big, it will make Tata’s acquisition look like a steal. However, this assumes that Tata can revive flagging sales at Jaguar and Land Rover in the middle of a downturn. Likewise, it assumes that Tata, by simply owning the brands, will not dilute their image. Finally, it assumes that the Jaguar and/or Land Rover brands can be revived after years of neglect and consumer dissatisfaction, and that consumers will once again be interested in buying relatively expensive, gas-guzzling cars and SUV’s (especially in the case of LR).

I remain skeptical.

When it became clear later in the year that demand had collapsed in the auto industry I wrote:

And it looks like things will be even tougher [for JLR and Tata] with global demand…slowing quite a bit.

I was therefore not surprised to see an article in this week’s Economist detailing some of the difficulty that Tata has been experiencing with its Jaguar/Rover subsidiary (see Indian Firms’ Foreign Purchases). Although the purpose of the piece was to review (broadly) the history of Indian overseas investment, it provided some perspective into Tata and JLR.

…several of corporate India’s acquisitions now seem ill-advised. The purchase of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) in 2008, for example, saddled Tata Motors with a prestigious brand, prodigious losses and a $3 billion loan, the last $1 billion of which it managed to refinance on May 27th, days before it fell due. It has had to call on the help of the Tata Group’s holding company, which underwrote its faltering rights issue last year, and the indulgence of India’s biggest state bank, which guaranteed an $840m bond it floated in May. In a recent interview, Ratan Tata, the group’s chairman, admitted that the company bought JLR at an “inopportune time”.

The authors then pose the following questions:

So were these acquisitions fundamentally sound decisions cursed by poor timing?

MY COMMENT: Naw, that doesn’t sound right.

Or were they bad decisions flattered by easy money?

MY COMMENT: Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding – we have a winner.

As we wait for GM to officially declare bankruptcy (see Bondholders Push GM to Brink) and a decision on Opel (Berlin Considers Buyer for GM Unit), I thought I’d share an interesting article from this week’s edition of the Economist on Fiat’s quest to create a global automobile firm (see Marriages Made in Hell).

According to the Economist:

The bold attempt by Sergio Marchionne, chief executive of the Fiat Group, to use the crisis that has overwhelmed Detroit to forge a three-way merger between Fiat Auto, Chrysler and General Motors’ European arm, Opel, has been greeted both with admiration (for his chutzpah) and scepticism (about his ability to pull it off). The sceptics say cross-border mergers in the car industry have a poor record and that Mr Marchionne is biting off much more than he can chew.

Assuming Mr Marchionne does get both [Chrysler and Opel] deals done, that is when the hard part will begin. Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley says that although the three-way combination could make 6m cars and around $100 billion of revenue, he doubts whether it will be able to operate in a fully integrated way like VW or Toyota “for perhaps decades”. He also questions Mr Marchionne’s faith in scale, suggesting it is a function of success rather than prerequisite for it and gives warning that even successful mergers bring with them “many hidden cost burdens (financial and non-financial)” and that these can spiral if things do not go well.

The doubts are rooted in experience. With the partial exception of the alliance formed between Renault and Nissan a decade ago, auto-industry mergers usually go wrong and destroy rather than create value.

Personally, I think it is extremely generous to refer to the Renault and Nissan deal as a success. Let’s just say it hasn’t fallen apart, yet. But that is neither here nor there. The real point is that these types of deals generally fail.

The skepticism detailed in the Economist is entirely consistent with the views I expressed several weeks ago in the post Is Fiat Nuts??:

If it weren’t enough that Fiat is trying to expand on the North American front via its alliance with Chrysler (see Now Introducing Fiat/Chrysler), it now seems as if Fiat wants to simultaneously expand its empire closer to home (via an acquisition of Opel)…

Are they nuts??? It is hard enough to pull off one integration the size of Chrysler, but now they are going to try to pull off two? And to top it all off, we’re talking about foreign integrations, where economic, political, and cultural differences compound the complexity. Frankly, I am surprised that Fiat’s board would give Marchionne the approval to simultaneously attempt both deals. A prudent board would counsel Marchionne to eat one cookie at a time, lest he get indigestion. So much for corporate governance.

“From an engineering and industrial point of view, this is a marriage made in heaven,” [Marchionne] was quoted as telling the Financial Times on Monday.

Or [as I put it at the time] an integration made in hell.

The Economist continues:

The corporate troubleshooter [Marchionne], who, since 2004, has been responsible for a highly successful turnaround at Fiat, has reached the conclusion that volume carmakers will in future need to sell at least 5.5m vehicles a year to be viable. With just over 2m sales last year, Fiat is too small to get there on its own. The choice, he believes, is a stark one: Fiat must be either a nimble hunter or wait to be gobbled up by someone else.

I responded to that specious logic with the following:

I just don’t get it. Why the preoccupation with size? I remain unconvinced that largess is a means to success. Just ask Jurgen Schrempp and the folks at Daimler, who ran around spewing the same nonsense about scale and survival before their acquisition of Chrysler.

Size certainly leads to increased revenues, which helps justify exorbitant managerial pay. But given the organizational complexities that go hand in hand with size, size does not always translate into increased profitability.

In order to truly benefit from size, there must exist extremely large economies of scale and scope. Perhaps such economies (the ability to economize on platforms, dealerships, suppliers, etc.) exist in theory in the auto industry. However, the power of the auto unions, coupled with the structural characteristics of the countries in which Fiat, Chrysler, and Opel operate make capturing synergies very difficult.

Fiat will certainly encounter difficulties when trying to capture synergies based upon economies of scale. But the trouble with Marchionne’s logic does not end there.

The fact remains, there is absolutely nothing wrong (from a strategic perspective) with being the hunted instead of the hunter. Lest we forget, managers act in the capacity of agents for shareholders. As such, they have a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value. If maximizing shareholder value means selling to a high bidder, then so be it. Shareholders generally end up better off in cases where their firm is the target rather than the acquiror. Moreover, looking only to be the hunter can be self-serving on the part of managers – it helps enrich them, allowing them to build empires and become entrenched along the way, while ultimately destroying shareholder value.

If Marchionne is truly interested in acquiring Chrysler and Opel because he believes it is better to be the hunter than the hunted, then we must question his motivation. It could be, as I pointed out in my previous post (Is Fiat Nuts??), that:

Marchionne, aided by a board of directors that he has in his back pocket, is engaging in a form of empire building whereby his own personal interests in building the world’s second largest automaker are taking precedence over the best interests of Fiat’s long-term health and prosperity.

Nevertheless, for those of you interested, I encourage you to read the entire Economist piece. It provides a nice perspective on the proposed three-way deal. That said however, it still came across as if the authors believe that the Fiat/Chrysler/Opel deal makes strategic sense, and that if anyone could pull off such a deal, it is Mr. Marchionne.

I am less sanguine. My stance toward Fiat/Chrysler/Opel therefore remains: Guilty until proven innocent.