Communicating a business acquisition – how to do it right

Acquisitions happen for a variety of reasons in business, including to benefit from another company’s presence in a specific market, expand product or service capabilities or even to simply consolidate.

Whether your company is purchasing another organisation or has itself been acquired, getting your communications strategy right is crucial.

Freshfield’s CEO, Simon Turner, recently shared a blog about communicating a merger. While many of the same principles still apply, an acquisition can often create additional questions, particularly among staff, clients and other stakeholders of the business which has been acquired.

Freshfield has supported leadership teams across a range of sectors through the acquisition process. With so much energy expended on getting the deal done, communicating the news to stakeholders often becomes an afterthought.

Here are some key considerations for a strong communications strategy for an acquisition:

Develop a unified message and strategy

Whether you are the buyer or seller, an aligned narrative about what is driving the acquisition is vital. Mapping out the practicalities of what will be said, to whom, and when, should be started as early as possible. Some key questions to consider:

• What will you tell staff during the acquisition process and who will be responsible for this? If staff are communicating different messages about a potential acquisition, rumours could spread among your workforce.
• Which party will communicate with media when the deal completes? In the vast majority of situations, a joint news release with quotes from both parties is advisable to highlight the deal’s mutual benefits.
• Will you need to communicate with the media and stakeholders before completion? Some acquisitions are so high-profile, because of the companies involved, that once the key principles of a deal have been agreed, communicating an ‘intention to acquire’ message can be a useful way to control the message about an acquisition early.

Tell your stakeholders in the right order

If you are an employee or key customer of a business that gets acquired by a competitor and you find out about it in the media, you would rightly be annoyed.

Avoiding this type of situation is vital and the best way is to create a communications timeline structured around the expected completion date. Generally, you should look to tell staff, followed by clients and other key stakeholders, then the media. However, circumstances differ for every company.

The whole process should be completed quickly to ensure you control the narrative of the acquisition. Once you have told staff, you have limited time before the word is out.

Explain the reasons and focus on the positives

Business acquisitions usually happen for the right reasons and a key part of communicating about an acquisition is being honest about these reasons and focusing on the positives of the deal. This will help your key stakeholders to understand the change and, in some cases, strengthen the long-term relationship.

Communicate continuity

After explaining the reasons for an acquisition, it may be important to show continuity to clients and business partners, particularly if the exiting shareholders will retain a management position for a certain period, or the management team will remain unchanged.

Companies should think carefully about changes to operations, key staff and also branding. Generally, a ‘business-as-usual’ message is advisable for around the first year following a takeover to give staff time to become fully integrated within a new structure and stakeholders to understand the changes for themselves.

A well-known example where this strategy was not followed was Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter in October 2022. Following a string of redundancies in the first few weeks of his ownership, Musk then changed the brand to ‘X’ with little warning in July 2023, around eight months after the acquisition.

A report in March 2024 suggested use of Twitter has fallen by 30 per cent over the previous year and despite the high-profile name change, many users still simply refer to the platform as Twitter.

Make sure your leaders are visible

Another key part of continuity is ensuring the leaders of both the seller and the acquirer are visible and remain an important part of communications in the early months following a takeover. It’s not always possible, for example in a retirement sale – but there is usually a director or senior manager who remains within the business and can be a strong spokesperson to symbolise this continuity.

People trust people and making your spokespeople prominent in communications following a takeover is a way of showing – rather than telling – stakeholders that there is stability within an organisation.

Of course, every acquisition is different and so communications strategies need to be tailored to the specific circumstances surrounding a deal.

If you are planning a merger or acquisition and need some specialist PR and communications advice, please contact Joel Durkin at hello@freshfield.com or complete our online form here.