Love is in the air

摘要

AFTER a miserable few years in the executive suite,with only the ugly sisters of cost control and corporate governance for company,many a boss's thoughts have lately turned to love.A recent spate of headline-grabbing mergers seems to herald another wave of corporate marriages.The mood had already begun to sweeten last year,the most active for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) worldwide by value since the last wave broke in 2000.But the recently announced nuptials of some of the world's most celebrated firms-Procter & Gamble (P&G) tying the knot with Gillette,"Ma Bell" (AT&T) being swept (a tad Oedipally) off her feet by one of her own "Baby Bells",SBC-have once again given the urge to merge the aura of respectability in the corporate world,a respectability lost when so many of the previous wave of beautiful marriages (remember AOL-Time Warner?) crashed so soon and so spectacularly on to the rocks.