Shareholders seem to have their doubts as the share price dropped after the announcement. Join Guus Greve as he discussed and analyses this recently announced deal with his former colleague from Shell and current Non-executive Director, Richard Oblath. This is a new approach in the M&amp;A Podcast series and lessons from the past episodes are applied as we delve into this deal’s details. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 Will the $65bln Unilever-McCormick Food deal create value?

The Mergers & Acquisitions Podcast 

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The Mergers &amp; Acquisitions Podcast

## Transcript

Welcome to the Mergers and Acquisitions Podcast. M&A covers many aspects and disciplines, and over the past 20 or so editions of this podcast, most have been covered with a wide range of outstanding guests. In fact, I don't think there's that much that we have forgotten. But if I'm wrong about that, please let me know. You will have noticed that learning to do better deals, and also to do deals better, has become a key theme as we know that many deals don't create the value that they promise.

But learning can be done in many ways, and I thought in this episode we'll take a slightly different approach. We'll use the example of one specific actual deal, analyze it, and draw some learnings that may be useful for all of us. The deal in question is the $65bn merger of the food business of European company Unilever with the American company McCormick, which specializes in flavor, which was announced in March 26.

With me in the studio is a guest I wanted to have here for a long time, Richard Oblad. Richard and I have worked together off and on in these M&A teams of Shell for some 15 years, and I've shared the highs and lows of deal making with him on many occasions, in late night negotiation sessions, shared offices, meeting rooms and airports, and through every sort of phone video and other virtual connection in addition.

Since leaving Shell, Richard has built up a portfolio of activities, and today among others he serves as non-executive chair of H2 Transition Capital, an emerging global fund focused on developing, managing and investing in the hydrogen value chain. Richard is also a non-executive director of Kinex Energy, that's a gas distribution company in Northern Ireland, and of Hyor, a firm focused on commercializing hydrogen propulsion technologies for heavy-duty applications.

Richard is also a trustee, executive board member, and the chair of the Technology Communities Board of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining. During his industrial career, Richard worked for the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company for 14 years, and then with Shell for 25 years, of which a large part was associated with all forms of M&A. Richard was accountable for over 50 deals, from as small as $10 million to up to $10 billion,

with every different counterparty you can think of in almost any geography in the world. Richard, welcome to the podcast studio. Thank you, Hughes. I'm delighted to be here. Well, before we start, can you please explain how you got into M&A, and why you could not let go of it once you had found out about it? Yeah, let me start by saying the way I talk about M&A with some of the clients I've consulted with,

when they ask me how to improve their M&A division or doing M&A. And I tell them, do not follow my example. I started M&A in absolutely the worst way, in my opinion. I had three different assignments at Goodyear where I was leading businesses tha...

Will the $65bln Unilever-McCormick Food deal create value?

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

Will the $65bln Unilever-McCormick Food deal create value?

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.