Corporate acquisitions & the accounting profession: Rethinking strategic planning for CPA firms

The business world has also witnessed several gargantuan corporate acquisitions since 1979. Since 1979 through the third; quarter of 1982, there have been eleven corporate acquisitions valued at $2 billion or more. Two acquisitions, the Dupont; purchase of Conoco and the U.S. Steel purchase of Marathon Oil, each carried price tags greater than six billion dollars. The; list of eleven of the largest acquisitions in the last four years is presented in Exhibit 1-3. This explosion of corporate acquisition activity marks the; beginning of the fourth major period of merger activity in the United States [Brigham, 1982, p. 732]. The reason why 1981 is termed "explosive" can be visualized by comparing Exhibit 1-1 with the level of corporate activity in prior years as illustrated in Exhibit 1-4.