UNITY BANK: REALIZING VALUE FROM AN M&A INTEGRATION
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Founded in 1982 in South Africa, Unity Bank was one of the few providers of global shareholder and employee management services and other value added services. Unity held more than 60 million accounts for over 10,000 corporations across twelve countries and five continents, employing 8000 people worldwide and a market capitalization of $2 billion. The M&A integration of Delta with Unity Bank in itself was a great step for Unity Bank.
The four major areas to be considered during the integration were software, infrastructure, organization structure, and people. The team’s task was challenging as it had called for a $60 million saving in two years, nearly half of Delta’s current operational expense. The pressure was intense as merging two emerging entities was a huge task. The management was unequipped with plan and was not aware the first area that they needed to tackle.
We believe that the integration could be managed by gradually consolidating Delta systems into LEAD, pushing back the deadline by 2 years, creating cash and transition incentives to increase employee productivity and decrease resistance, offer clients discounted rate to retain them and implement a flexible/parallel problem solving approach.
OVERVIEW:
Unity Bank will have the largest market share in the US after the acquisition of Delta is finalized. This has presented the management of Unity, the company acquiring Delta, with many obstacles. The shareholder employee management services industry has been increasingly relying on advanced IT to handle both the massive volume of shareholders and the complexity of the transactions needed to be processed. Unity is currently faced with multiple conundrums in how to integrate the two company’s systems into one mechanism that will allow for economies of scale and high efficiency.
The two company’s systems are different on many levels that impact flawless