6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Very specialized, but necessary background. Well written., 2003-11-03
Since this is a legal casebook, this book is targeted for lawyers who want background on corporate acquisitions. It is terrific for this. Great and relevant cases with very good write-ups. Plus it has some very nice introductory material on the role of lawyers in adding value to the acquisition process and offers a decent summary of the principles of corporate finance.But I think it has real value for the businessperson who is going to be hiring lawyers to help him or her in the process of acquiring or being acquired. Just as this book provides some background on finance for lawyers, it provides a great deal of good background that every businessperson needs to know and where things can go wrong.
At over 1,500 pages it is a huge book. It is unlikely that you will ready it from cover to cover, but it is engagingly written. So, if you enjoy this topic I think you will find yourself dipping into it on a regular basis. There is an index and a list of all the cases cited in the book, plus a very interesting list of the authorities cited including their writings.
This book was originally published in 1986 with this second edition coming out in 1995. There have been some separate updates published since then, which can also be found on Amazon. I have not looked at the updates and found this book to be satisfactory for my purposes. It is interesting to get so much background on some very famous cases and see how eight years has offered new perspective and how much is forgotten in the popular consciousness. If you are involved in acquisitions I think this book deserves to be on your shelf. I don't know how you could think you have been diligent without consulting this standard text. I bought it as a recommended supplementary text for a course I took on corporate control as part of the MBA program at the Michigan Business School.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Those who know choose this book, 2002-11-01
Gilson and Black have assembled the authoritative casebook for students interested in the field, professors teaching it, and practitioners who need some context.
One could read the "other" M&A book by Carney, but one could also drink weak tea. Neither would be satisfactory.
The book is not for the faint of heart. The authors do not even cite a case for a couple hundred pages. The book endeavors to really teach what one needs if an understanding of this complex field of law is what is truely sought after. Therefore, it starts with a primer in economic theory and practices. Get out a calculator because if you went to law school to escape them, you were wrong. This is an highly important, and now, rare book. Both because it has been increasingly hard to find, and because the current trend in legal casebooks has been to water everything down. This book rasies the bar to a level other casebooks, students, teachers, and practitioners of law should strive to achieve.