Ep. 88 – “From Methane Leaks to Deal Leaks… with Employee Activism Along the Way”

We often wonder why and how deals leak... and I can imagine many of you wonder the same. Today, we were excited to host the Abernathy MacGregor team to hear their insights on a few topics including the predictability of deal leaks and employee activism. Joining us today are Sydney Isaacs, Managing Director and Head of the Houston Office along with Blair Hennessy, Managing Director based out of Abernathy's New York office. Sydney and Blair were wonderful guests and we had a really great discussion!

We kick off the episode with some background on Abernathy MacGregor and how they help their clients navigate complex situations with communications, engagement and advocacy expertise. One topic their team has focused on is employee activism and its developing role in M&A. We discussed the debate many companies have on what social topics they should touch on and how employees are driving change.

As you will hear, Blair walked us through advising an M&A client through a deal, how they can best prepare for the deal to leak and the best scenarios for addressing stakeholders when it inevitably happens. Their data is striking on how often deals leak and the the patterns across sectors, seasons or deal size.

To start the show, Mike Bradley shared a few slides showing the US and ECB balance sheets to debt ratio and touched on the OPEC+ meeting taking place later this week. Matt Portillo had a new update from TPH Research on the LCFS market as well as an auto sector earnings update. Craig Webster joined during a busy ESG week with his thoughts around COP26 and the recent proposal to limit methane emissions from oil and gas production. Colin Fenton took us all back to school and examined global oil demand projections.