Money making, company taking
Happy Monday, Baltimore. We hope that today's darker-earlier sky isn't deterring you from having some fun watching the Ravens game tonight or otherwise taking advantage of warmer weather.
Today, in addition to a nifty guide to pitching the Pentagon, you'll see a story about an acquisition of a local company. Specifically, clean.io — a cyber company you might remember as one of our 2020 RealLIST Startups — has been acquired by the internationally reaching cyber company HUMAN.
In our report, you'll also see that clean.io's CEO Geoff Stupay described the deal as benefitting customers because what was two companies, each focusing on its own end of the platform-advertiser relationship, is now one company concerned with the whole equation.
This kind of rhetoric — which suggests that having one company doing more things is better than two that do fewer things — is pretty common for businesses trying to justify mergers, acquisitions or similar combinations. While HUMAN's CEO said that the deal didn't result in any layoffs, anybody who's seen the inside of such a combination knows that layoffs aren't the only possible hassle to accompany that process, as the Spice Girls say, when two becomes one.
So, what do you think about this deal, or other acquisitions in the region? Is the combined capacity better than the possibility of more companies? What makes for a good merger or acquisition? Let us know by emailing
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