Investing in External Growth

Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance, grade: 1,7, The FOM University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, language: English, abstract: External growth in forms of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) is massively driving the growth of many companies. In 2015, the total amount of 3.8 to 5 trillion to US-Dollars (USD) was spent on M&A, marking it as the year of the highest spending ever. Vivid sectors are healthcare and technology: in 2015, both accounted for over 700 billion USD each. Latest news reports a joint venture between Siemens and Gamesa merging their wind business and creating a new leading market player. If everything proceeds as planned, this will be the next big portfolio change after 2015's acquisition of Dresser-Rand for approximately 7.8 billion USD. These latest developments in general and in particular within the Siemens AG are investigated in this paper with the objective of answering the question: What is the strategy behind M&A and how to evaluate the price of an acquisition? Thereby the case of the acquisition of Dresser-Rand Group Inc. by Siemens AG is covered. Handling this topic the first step is defining the strategies to grow a company either with organically or inorganically growth. Subsequently, a closer look is taken at external growth in forms of M&A. The common forms of inorganic growth are introduced and the connected strategy is examined and evaluated. In addition, Siemens' key acquisitions are considered to derive the underlying strategy. The second part highlights how a possible acquisition can be evaluated. Therefore, different approaches are explained and used to value the acquisition of Dresser-Rand by Siemens AG. The different approaches are compared to the original price and each other concluding in a comparison and evaluation of the various methods.