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The idea here is not in the news itself, but in where you can remove excess expenses and recover investments faster. Market signal: strengthen distribution and reach demand faster.
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The EU is changing merger rules — and this is a chance for entrepreneurs to remove duplicate processes, combine teams, and reach a new level of profitability. If mergers are viewed as a way to reduce costs, the value will not be in the news itself, but in removing expensive manual steps and accelerating the deal cycle.What happened
The European Union is preparing a reform of merger and acquisition rules. The regulator will now assess not only competitive risks, but also the strategic value of deals: benefits from scale, investments in infrastructure, and the ability to create jobs. The goal is to give European companies the ability to compete with American and Asian giants. For business, this means that deals that were previously blocked may now go through. Market consolidation is accelerating.How this is useful for business
When companies merge, they remove duplicate sales, marketing, HR, and accounting departments. One server instead of two, one CRM instead of two subscriptions, one legal team instead of two. This is direct savings on fixed costs. According to industry research, consolidation in adjacent sectors can reduce operating expenses by 15–30% in the first year after a merger. For a business with 20% margin, this can mean net profit growth of 5–10 percentage points. This is especially relevant for IT companies, where the main expense item is engineers’ salaries and software licenses. Combining two development teams instead of maintaining two separate offices provides savings on rent, equipment, and administration.How to make money from this
The first scenario is consolidation of B2B services. If you work in the SaaS niche for small businesses, merging with a competitor gives you a shared client base and removes customer acquisition costs that were previously spent fighting for the same users. Marketing savings can amount to 20–40% of the current budget. The second scenario is vertical integration. Buying a supplier or distributor removes the intermediary’s markup. If your resale margin is 15%, and you buy an intermediary for $500 000, payback occurs in 3–4 years due to margin growth. The third scenario is buying a complementary business. An IT company buys a consulting firm in the same niche and receives a stable flow of inbound projects, reducing costs for the sales team. The sales channel expands without hiring new managers.Business ideas
First idea: become an M&A broker for mid-sized businesses. Companies with revenue of $5–20 million do not have the resources for their own M&A department, but they need help evaluating deals. Your margin is a commission of 2–5% of the deal amount. With an average deal of $10 million, that is $200,000–500,000 per project. Second idea: a platform for automating due diligence. Evaluating a company before a merger requires analysis of finances, legal documents, and IT infrastructure. Create a service that conducts an initial audit for $5,000–20,000 and prepares a report for the buyer. Third idea: consulting on post-merger integration. After a deal, companies spend months combining systems, processes, and cultures. A consulting service for integration management costs $50,000–200,000 per project depending on scale. Fourth idea: HR outsourcing for merged companies. After a merger, one of the pain points is combining payroll, benefits, and employment contracts. Offer an HR migration service: audit, transfer to a unified system, payroll cost optimization. Cost: $20,000–80,000 per project. Fifth idea: IT infrastructure leasing for consolidated companies. Merged companies often end up with excess servers and licenses. Become an intermediary: buy excess equipment from one company and sell it to another, earning 10–20% on resale.Risks and limitations
Regulatory risks remain. The new EU rules make mergers easier, but do not eliminate them completely. Deals in strategically important sectors still undergo review. Operational integration risks are the main reason mergers fail. According to McKinsey research, 70–80% of deals do not achieve the stated synergies. Cultural incompatibility between teams, duplication of functions, loss of key employees — all of this increases costs instead of reducing them. Financial risks: overestimating synergies leads to overpaying for an asset. If you buy a business for $10 million expecting savings of $3 million per year, but get only $1 million, the payback period stretches from 3 to 10 years.7-day action plan
Day 1–2: Determine whether there are competitor companies or complementary businesses in your niche with revenue of $2–15 million. Make a list of 5–10 potential partners for consolidation. Day 3: Calculate potential synergies. How much will you save by combining operations? Use the formula: savings = (duplicated expenses × 0.7) — integration costs. Day 4: Find a law firm specializing in M&A in your sector. Get an estimate of the cost of legal support for the deal. Day 5: Prepare a one-page proposal for a potential partner: what you offer, what synergies you see, how shares will be distributed. Day 6: ConductOriginal news: Financial Times Companies · See other news in the news section.
Часто задаваемые вопросы
The regulator assesses not only competitive risks, but also strategic value: benefits from scale, investment in infrastructure, and job creation. Deals that were previously blocked may now go through. This concerns consolidation in adjacent sectors.
Consolidation in adjacent sectors reduces operating expenses by 15–30% in the first year. Duplicate sales, marketing, HR, and accounting departments are eliminated. For a business with a 20% margin, this can add 5–10 percentage points to net profit.
Look for competitor companies or complementary businesses in your niche with revenue of $2–15 million. Make a list of 5–10 potential partners. Assess which of them have processes and functions that duplicate yours — these are synergy points.
–80% of deals do not achieve the stated synergies. The main reasons: cultural incompatibility between teams, duplication of functions, loss of key employees. Overestimating synergies leads to overpayment and stretches the payback period from 3 to 10 years.
Use the formula: savings = (duplicated expenses × 0.7) — integration costs. Multiply current expenses for duplicated functions by 0.7, then subtract one-time costs for combining systems, processes, and teams.
