I’ve been in the room for a lot of M&A. Some, like DECIEM, Le Labo and the Lamb
By Andrewgeorgeross · November 10, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
I’ve been in the room for a lot of M&A. Some, like DECIEM, Le Labo and the Lamb Weston spin-off, worked. Others, like Ralcorp, BECCA and Dr. Jart+, didn’t, or at least not yet. I’m still cheering that last one on.
Same care and passion. Often the same smart and extremely capable teams. What separated them was rarely the price or the deal structure, which is where almost all of the attention goes.
The deals that worked got two things right. We understood what we were really buying, and we adapted when reality departed from the plan. The deals that did not got the same two things wrong. They need different disciplines and tools. Traditional integration playbooks address only one, and statically.
That’s what Hugged To Death is about. It tests success and failure patterns against deals across the industry, from Coty’s purchase of P&G’s beauty brands to L’Oréal and CeraVe, and turns them into practical tools to protect and build the value you paid for, before close and after.
I wrote it from hard-won experience on both sides, for the people who live with an integration after the bankers, consultants and even the deal team move on: CEOs, boards, founders, investors, integration leaders, and the business and functional leaders who have to make deals work.
Thank you to Gregory Polcer, Bill Hahn and Andrew Shore for reading and helping shape the drafts, and to my talented daughter Catriona Ross for designing the cover and chapter logo.
Hugged To Death is out now in paperback and on Kindle.
https://lnkd.in/gfBTyZrM