Running Head: Mergers, Acquisitions and International Strategies 8 Student name Institutional affiliations Instructor Course title/code Date of submission Mergers, Acquisitions and International Strategies Contents Introduction 2 Walt Disney Company; A corporation involved in acquisitions 3 Benefits of Disney Acquisitions 3 Strong brand reputation 3 Strong product portfolio 4 Diversification of the nature of business 4 Increased competitiveness 4 Tribune publishing: a corporation that has not been involved in mergers and acquisitions 5 Business level and corporate level strategies for Walt Disney Company 6 Business level strategy 6 Recommendations for business level strategy 6 Corporate level strategy 7 Recommendations for improvement 7 Business level and corporate level strategies for Tribute Publishing 7 Possible business level strategy for Tribute publishing 7 Justification 8 Possible corporate level strategy of Tribute Publishing 8 Justification 8 References 8 Introduction Mergers and acquisitions are strategies that have been used in the corporate world to expand the scope of business and advantage from the synergy effect created. An acquisition is a strategy where a larger company acquires another smaller company (Hubbard, 2013). The smaller company operates under the larger company after the acquisition. A merger on the other hand is a strategy where two or more companies merge their operations and become one. Both companies cease to exist after the merger (Hubbard, 2013). The Entertainment industry in the United States of America has had a rich history in mergers and acquisitions. Companies have been merging to form one large company and in other situations a smaller company giving up its ownership to a relatively larger company. In this analysis, we analyse the Disney Company as a company that has a history of acquisitions and compare it to USA Discovery Communications, a company that has no acquisition industry in the USA. Walt Disney Company; A corporation involved in acquisitions The Walt Disney Company has been involved in a number of acquisitions. The strategy that led to the acquisitions is that of increasing the market share (Hubbard, 2013). The company has a mission of growing into the best Media Company in the world. Disney therefore has been acquiring a number of companies in the industry to expand its scope of operation. The company has been second in size in the world from Comcast. To defeat Comcast, acquisitions were a better option. The company has therefore has acquired several companies in the industry. These include Jack Wrather Esatate, ESPN, ABC, Pixar, Marvel and Lucas Film (Watts, 2013).Benefits of Disney Acquisitions The company’s main benefit from these acquisitions is that of the synergy effect. The power of Disney in the market has increased from these acquisitions. Synergy effect comes due to a number of factors. These include improved management, incr ...

1. Running Head: Mergers, Acquisitions and International
Strategies 8
Student name
Institutional affiliations
Instructor
Course title/code
Date of submission
Mergers, Acquisitions and International Strategies
Contents
Introduction 2
Walt Disney Company; A corporation involved in acquisitions
3
Benefits of Disney Acquisitions 3
Strong brand reputation 3
Strong product portfolio 4
Diversification of the nature of business 4

2. Increased competitiveness 4
Tribune publishing: a corporation that has not been involved in
mergers and acquisitions 5
Business level and corporate level strategies for Walt Disney
Company 6
Business level strategy 6
Recommendations for business level strategy 6
Corporate level strategy 7
Recommendations for improvement 7
Business level and corporate level strategies for Tribute
Publishing 7
Possible business level strategy for Tribute publishing 7
Justification 8
Possible corporate level strategy of Tribute Publishing 8
Justification 8
References 8
Introduction
Mergers and acquisitions are strategies that have been used in
the corporate world to expand the scope of business and
advantage from the synergy effect created. An acquisition is a
strategy where a larger company acquires another smaller
company (Hubbard, 2013). The smaller company operates under
the larger company after the acquisition. A merger on the other
hand is a strategy where two or more companies merge their
operations and become one. Both companies cease to exist after
the merger (Hubbard, 2013).
The Entertainment industry in the United States of America has
had a rich history in mergers and acquisitions. Companies have
been merging to form one large company and in other situations
a smaller company giving up its ownership to a relatively larger
company. In this analysis, we analyse the Disney Company as a

3. company that has a history of acquisitions and compare it to
USA Discovery Communications, a company that has no
acquisition industry in the USA. Walt Disney Company; A
corporation involved in acquisitions
The Walt Disney Company has been involved in a number of
acquisitions. The strategy that led to the acquisitions is that of
increasing the market share (Hubbard, 2013). The company has
a mission of growing into the best Media Company in the world.
Disney therefore has been acquiring a number of companies in
the industry to expand its scope of operation. The company has
been second in size in the world from Comcast. To defeat
Comcast, acquisitions were a better option. The company has
therefore has acquired several companies in the industry. These
include Jack Wrather Esatate, ESPN, ABC, Pixar, Marvel and
Lucas Film (Watts, 2013).Benefits of Disney Acquisitions
The company’s main benefit from these acquisitions is that of
the synergy effect. The power of Disney in the market has
increased from these acquisitions. Synergy effect comes due to
a number of factors. These include improved management,
increased distribution channel efficiency, increased market
share, diversification in products and distribution channels,
increased level of competitiveness among others (Watts, 2013).
Strong brand reputation
The strategy has been beneficial to Disney Company. The
company has benefited in different ways. For instance, the
acquisitions have enabled the company to build a strong brand
reputation. Brand reputation here refers to the acceptability of
its products in the market. The company has been able to serve
the customers better after the acquisitions (Watts, 2013). The
company is now able to identify the needs of its customers and
serve them better. As a result, the company has been able to
keep its customers satisfied by its quality of service. There have
been minimal complains about the quality of service since the
company acquired the companies.

4. Strong product portfolio
The company has also been able to build a strong product
portfolio. Disney Company originally provided lean services to
its customers. This was due to the limited capacity of the
company to offer a wide range of services. Jack Wrather
Esatate, ESPN, ABC, Pixar, Marvel and Lucas Film offer
various services to the industry. Combined with the services
that the Disney Company originally offered to the market, the
company has been able to increase its product portfolio
invincibly (Watts, 2013). It is due to this invincible product
portfolio that Disney has been able to take the leading position
in the market ahead of the greatest competitor; Comcast.
Diversification of the nature of business
Disney has also been able to diversify its nature of business.
The company has been able to offer different products and
services in the market compared to what it offered before the
acquisitions. Since the company become part of Disney
Company after acquisitions, the Products that and services of
Jack Wrather Esatate, ESPN, ABC, Pixar, Marvel and Lucas
Film are now products of Disney and therefore the nature of
business of the company has been diversified greatly by these
acquisitions (Watts, 2013).
Increased competitiveness
Disney has also been increasing its competitiveness in the
market. Before acquisitions, the company was facing a great
competition threat from Comcast. However, after the
acquisitions, the threat of competition has faded. The company
has grown into a market leader above Comcast. As a result,
profit making for Disney has been so easy. The increase in
competitiveness has also given the company an invincible
acquisition power in the industry. Today, acquiring another
company has been so easy for Disney Company since the
company has what it takes. It is hard to defend an acquisition
planned by Disney. Today, Disney makes an estimated 45

5. billion USD annually (Watts, 2013).Tribune publishing: a
corporation that has not been involved in mergers and
acquisitions
Tribune publishing is an entertainment company that has not
been involved in acquisitions business. However, the company
is losing a lot of potential profits from operating solely. The
company should consider merging with another media company
in the USA. A good target for the company to merge with would
be Cox enterprises. This is a good target for acquisition since
the company has been growing in popularity in the recent past.
Cox Enterprises has been characterized by operational
inefficiencies in the course of operation. The management of
the company is therefore relatively faulty. As a result, the
Tribune Publishing can take advantage of this and launch an
acquisition of ox enterprises. The success of the acquisition is
likely due to the revenue differential of the two companies.
Tribute publishing makes an estimated 653,000 newspaper sales
compared to the newspaper sales of Cox enterprises estimated
at239, 000 annually. As a result, the company could easily
acquire Cox Enterprises (Hubbard, 2013).
Tribute Publishing could benefit from synergy by acquiring Cox
Enterprises. Synergy could result from a number of factors. For
instance, the combined resulting size of the company would be
so large (Vogel, 2014). As a result, the company would be able
to operate more efficiently. This is because the company would
advantage from economies of scale reducing cost of production.
Secondly, Tribute publishing’s management could take over the
management of Cox Enterprises. As a result, the management of
Cox Enterprises would be enhanced and therefore the profit of
the subsidiary would increase. According to Hubbard (2013),
due to the improved management of Cox Enterprises, the overall
profitability would increase.
The competitiveness of the company in the market would also
increase. This is because, the results of the acquisition is a
larger sized Tribute Publishing. Large size would mean that the
company offers more competitiveness in the market. This can be

6. attributed to increased brand reputation, increased market share,
better quality of service, and increased products diversification
among other factors. Is the company is more competitive, it
would then make more combined sales, make bigger profits and
grow together (Vogel, 2014). Business level and corporate level
strategies for Walt Disney CompanyBusiness level strategy
The business level strategy is the strategy that is employed by a
company to create and keep a competitive advantage (Vogel,
2014). Disney Company has been using a business level strategy
of quality customer service and this service has been able to
propel the company to its high level of competitiveness.
Disney’s management have the virtue of always ensuring quality
service to its customers. The company has been offering quality
TV channels, quality movies and other services it provides. The
services have been of high quality and as a result, customer
complaints have been minimal. Reduced customer complaints
have made the company maintain the level of competitiveness
that it has today.
Recommendations for business level strategy
Apart from ensuring good quality of customer service, the
company should;
· Ensure that the services are cheaper
· The cost of offering the services is minimized
· The company has a defined channel of obtaining customer
responses
· The company has a defined channel of correcting
imperfections in its product quality Corporate level strategy
The corporate level strategy of Disney Company is that of
integrated management. Integrated management is a kind of
management system where the decision making channel is
centralized. Despite the fact that the different companies that
have been acquired by Disney Company have had management
positions and personnel, the decision making of the resulting
company after the acquisitions has been integrated. The
decisions of the company are made from the headquarters in

7. California. Integrated management has proved beneficial for the
company. There is a defined line of authority and this ensures
fewer conflicts are witnessed in the management process.
Recommendations for improvement
The following can be done to ensure that the integrated
management is made more efficient
· Delegating some management decisions to lower level
management
· Building a good relationship between the management of Jack
Wrather Esatate, ESPN, ABC, Pixar, Marvel and Lucas Film
· Coordination and consistency in management decision
makingBusiness level and corporate level strategies for Tribute
PublishingPossible business level strategy for Tribute
publishing
The company could use low price as a business level strategy
Justification
Business level strategies are purely made to increase and
maintain the level of competitiveness of a company in an
industry. Tribute publishing operates in the media and
entertainment industry where there are many companies (Vogel,
2014). As a result, the level of competition is high. There are
many companies offering similar newspapers in the USA.
However, customers prefer lower priced products to the higher
priced ones. As a result, by offering low price for its
newspapers, the company will be able to attract customers and
maintain them.Possible corporate level strategy of Tribute
Publishing
The possible corporate level strategy that the company can
pursue is that of integrated sales.
Justification
The company’s corporate level strategy is appropriate after
considering a merger/acquisition. If the company merges with
Cox Enterprises, the corporate level strategy would be

8. beneficial for the company formed. This is because the new
company would make more sales than the individual company
sales from economies of scale in company sales. The retained
profit of the company would therefore be more than the profit
that would be realized if the two companies made the sales
individually.
References
Watts, S. (2013). The magic kingdom: Walt Disney and the
American way of life. University of Missouri Press
Hubbard, N. A. (2013). Mergers and Acquisitions. In
Conquering Global Markets (pp. 97- 131). Palgrave
Macmillan UK.
Vogel, H. L. (2014). Entertainment industry economics: A guide
for financial analysis. Cambridge University Press