A recent story in Leader’s Edge magazine dives into the issue of how a company’s cybersecurity practices may affect its merger and acquisition prospects. IT departments around the country are constantly fretting over cybersecurity issues to stay ahead of hackers, but “is your M&A team up to speed, too?”
Leader’s Edge reached out to Chris Forsyth, of the multinational law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, who argued that “you wouldn’t dream of buying a chemical plant without assessing environmental risk, so why would you buy a data-driven business without assessing the risks it faces around data management and cyber security?” A recent Freshfields survey polled more than 200 executives across North America and Europe and found that “83% of those surveyed say they think a deal would collapse if a previous history of cyber breaches was unearthed,” but “a whopping 78% believe cyber security is not analyzed in great depth or specifically quantified as part of the M&A due diligence process.” The whole story can be found here at Leader’s Edge magazine.