In this episode of The M&A Moment, I talk with Rick Climan, a partner at Weil, Gotshal and Manges, LLP, about year to date mergers and acquisition numbers, recent deals involving San Francisco Bay Area companies and the mechanics of launching an M&A deal from the seller’s perspective of a publicly traded company.

On the day that this show was recorded, Rick’s company was involved with a $28 Billion takeover of CR Bard by Becton-Dickinson. Rick couldn’t discuss much about that but, he does review some of the publicly available information about another recent deal his firm was involved in, PetSmart’s $3.35 Billion acquisition of Chewy.com.

Rick and I discuss MaxLiner’s (NYSE: MXL) $660Million takeover of the Bay Area’s Exar Corporation (NASDAQ: EXAR). This deal was of interest to me because MaxLinear’s CEO, Kishore Seendripu, was a classmate of mine at Wharton.

Finally, as mentioned, we take an in-depth look at the “mating dance” of M&A from the seller’s perspective. We look at why sellers pursue M&A as a strategy and how they begin the process of setting the value of their firms and making prospective buyers aware of their desire to sell.

This episode was recorded during my Bay Area Ventures show on SiriusXM Channel 111 Business Radio Powered by the Wharton School on April 24, 2017. Be sure to check out my Bay Area Ventures show here on Spreaker or on my website www.donaldlandwirth.com. For more information on Rick Climan you can go to www.weil.com/people/richard-climan or go to www.MandAMoment.com.