Great White Capital Wall Street private equity firm

Overview

Great White Capital, a big Wall Street private equity firm, is known for its rigid approach to achieving its objectives, and it takes great satisfaction in its own tough culture reputation.

Small Businesses in Strong Market Positions

The group of enterprises seeks badly managed small businesses in a strong market position. It is also well recognized for its vetting activities, in which a reputedly great team of operations specialists and auditors vet the company that the group plans to buy, and they are generously compensated for their efforts.

Management Team and Associates at BeachCo Ltd.

The world’s largest producer of beach supplies, BeachCo Ltd. displays a solid team of management that facilitates a high profitability coupled with a loyal customer base. BeachCo Ltd. is headquartered in Paris, France, and has established manufacturing plants in Brazil, China, and Vietnam with international distributors. The company celebrates its management team consisting of 21 members who have worked together for over ten years together with a flexible and reliable group of 850 associates that help in getting a product into the marketplace as well as solving customer issues. BeachCo Ltd has a less than 5 percent turnover rate, and Great White Capital deems it fit to purchase it. The associates have been working closely together, and have been able to handle customer service and other business issues without a problem. Through its operations, BeachCo can be seen to be more like a family-run business that appreciates its employees.

Key Players in the Purchase of BeachCo Ltd.

The purchase of BeachCo Ltd. by Great White Capital is determined by three main players that include GW Sharkey, Bob Quinn, and Marie Clouseau. GW Sharkey is a Great White Capital executive on the rise. GW maintains a positive attitude towards the acquisition of BeachCo, and he believes that the company will provide him an opportunity to find hidden profits. However, GW lacks good listening skills as he does not pay attention to his subordinate staff. This attitude could cause major problems for the group during the purchase of BeachCo as he could easily miss or ignore important information (Zhang and Chao 126).

Bob Quinn, an employee of Great White Capital, has been working for the organization for the last three years under the supervision of GW Sharkey. Bob Quinn was impressed by Great White due to their no-nonsense reputation. Unlike most of his colleagues, Bob is more sensitive, and he believes that by acquiring BeachCo Ltd, Great White would be making a poorly informed decision since they are not paying the right price, the cultural differences will constitute a developed problem after the acquisition, and professionals do not run BeachCo Ltd.

As BeachCo Ltd’s managing director for 18 years, Marie Clouseau is another important figure in the BeachCo Ltd acquisition. She is a smart, polished, sophisticated, and professional woman. Marie Clouseau has an outstanding rapport with her employees, who most of them made her Godmother to their children. She has also proven her strong sense of business together with her generosity while attending her charity circles. She is considered to be BeachCo’s matriarch.

The Analysis

G.W. Sharkey needed to make some promises to the directors of the Great White Capital before selling his idea. G.W. Sharkey convinced the board of trustees that they would leave BeachCo alone and that the acquisition would present Great White with an opportunity to establish a global distribution network, and that the combination of the BeachCo distribution system and Great White management would make the deal a success.

Great White Capital has a belief that they always know better, and hence; they do not expect to learn anything new from the companies that they purchase. Great White Capital is aware that BeachCo needs to grow, and by providing it enough capital, they can accomplish that. By purchasing BeachCo, the strategic operations of Great White Capital will flourish since they will gain access to the international distributors of BeachCo as they also gain access to their European presence; something that Great White Capital urgently needs.

Great White Capital has deemed it wise to shut down the back offices of BeachCo and move the operations to their nearby headquarters. The action will make it difficult for BeachCo employees to transition to a new office, possibly in a different country, forcing other employees to resign. This act is beneficial to the recruitment and selection process of Great White because it will be able to hire new employees with the attitude and beliefs shared by the organization. Great White Capital also intends to terminate the twenty-one-member management team within the first year after purchase.

Despite Bob Quinn’s reservations against the acquisition of BeachCo, Great White Capital sends him to Paris to discuss the traditions and similarities between BeachCo and his company. However, nothing meaningful transpires except a disastrous situation to the employees of BeachCo. Great White Capital eliminates the Associate Bonus Plan as it introduces a “Super Star” Bonus Plan that mostly benefits the upper management. The change in bonuses is expected to affect 75 percent of the employees at BeachCo. As a custom, BeachCo employees went to their cafeteria for a free lunch every day. But, Great White Capital also did away with this service, leaving the cooks, who had many years of experience and service at the company jobless. Besides, Great White Capital gave the retiring staff a small severance package that does not match their service and dedication. The introduced changes in employee benefits were significant, and it showed the team that the previous management at appreciated their devotion and hard work. When Great White Capital abolished most of the benefits, BeachCo’s employee relations suffered.

Besides, Great White Capital’s plan of closing BeachCo’s back office and moving the operation to their closest would also take away any possibilities of International Human Resources Management. Great White Offices not being filled with BeachCo employees would most likely create a cultural diversity and enable equal employment opportunities in all the Great White offices.

Lastly, Marie Clouseau is going through a devastating situation. The hard-working lady spent numerous years building the reputation of BeachCo, and now its acquisition by Great White Capital is destroying all her efforts. From new reports that constantly need to be filled out, to requiring multiple approvals for no reason in order to give customers credit, to getting requests from the headquarters of Great White Capital, offensive emails from other employees demanding a reply, to the point that she is no longer privileged to fly first class according to the new policies. It was now evident to all that G.W. Sharkey was only interested in BeachCo’s distribution routes, and he never cared about the well-being of its most valuable resources, employees.

Recommendations

Before BeachCo was purchased by Great White Capital, it was important for the HR Departments of both organizations to meet and discuss the ramifications of such a merger before its occurrence. When G.W. Sharkey said that he was going to leave BeachCo alone, it was strategized ploy to get the Board of Directors to see things his way. The conflict between Great White Capital and BeachCo was inevitable, especially as BeachCo was a foreign firm with different traditions, and most of its practices do not align with those of Great White Capital.

Since Great White Capital has its headquarters in the United States, this makes France a host country of the firm. The employment laws of the United States and those of France which is governed by the European Union are different. Now that BeachCo. has been acquired by Great White Capital, its manufacturing locations in Brazil, China, and Vietnam make it a global organization.

As a global organization, the Human Resources Department at Great White Capital needs to be aware of the different laws of the countries and hence know how they are going to work with the employees. One point that needs full attention is the fact that the working environment at BeachCo. As experienced by Marie Clouseau changed. Marie Clouseau started getting an enormous amount of paperwork from headquarters, some of it Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) reports. Since Great White Capital now became a global organization, it should be concerned with the EEO because when it comes to certain employment regulations, as is France, the European Union is the governing body. Thus, the rules and regulations of the United States rules would not impact French employees.

Moreover, Marie complained about receiving 10-page performance assessments. Such performance evaluations are not part of the acceptability criteria for an organization’s efficient performance management.

One important change that the Great White Capital HR Department can accomplish is meeting with BeachCo’s HR Department to discuss the new changes that should take place now that Great White has acquired BeachCo. It is important for the two departments to have synergy. Also, most importantly, the Great White Capital HR Department should be flexible and accommodative while negotiating with BeachCo for the process to be successful (Reddy et al. 917).

The biggest problem with the acquisition is the actions and attitude of G.W. Sharkey who is known to lack proper communication skills as he does not like listening to employees of a lower rank. Also, Mr. Sharkey promised the Board of Directors of Great White Capital that they will leave BeachCo alone, and that was not the case since it seems that he had plans in place long before the approval of the purchase.

Mr. Sharkey’s actions of getting rid of the lunch ladies, taking away the bonus plan of the associates as well as their free meals, showed BeachCo’s employees how Great White Capital was going to run things. It meant that only the top executives of the firm would reap the benefits of the company as the associates would now be regarded as the lower-class employees. Besides, the top management at BeachCo was not used to have large piles of papers on their desks, which most employees of Great White Capital would probably complete on Sunday afternoons.

In connection to the alignment of business strategies, BeachCo employees need to spend more time with the employees of Great White Capital for them to have a glimpse of the demands of the organization and what is expected of them as emphasized by Greve, Henrich, and Zhang 671). Great White Capital intends to move the back office of BeachCo to its nearest location. However, before considering this action, employees at Great White Capital should explain their desired processes to the employees of BeachCo before they decide to relocate in an attempt to increase the effectiveness of the entire workforce.

A further possible means for the organization to increase its effectiveness would be to reduce the piles of paperwork, eliminate threatening emails, and develop ways to enhance the synergy between both firms.

Lastly, it would be fulfilling to see a significant change to the entire acquisition process and future operation of the organizations. Such change would be the removal of Sharkey from the top leadership role and instead promote Madame Marie Clouseau and Mr. Bob Quinn as co-executives of this operation. Marie should remain in a position where she can confidently make decisions regarding the operations of Great White Capital in connection to the numerous distributors and manufacturers of the former BeachCo. Bob Quinn should have a top role since unlike Mr. Sharkey, he has better employee relations skills, and he would most likely gain the same respect shown to Marie Clouseau. Furthermore, since Mr. Quinn saw the difference in cultures between the two firms located in different countries, he is at a better position to spearhead the synchronization process.

Works Cited

Greve, Henrich R., and Cyndi Man Zhang. “Institutional logics and power sources: Merger and acquisition decisions.” Academy of Management Journal 60.2 (2017): 671-694.

Reddy, K. S., et al. “The causes and consequences of delayed/abandoned cross-border merger & acquisition transactions: A cross-case analysis in the dynamic industries.” Journal of Organizational Change Management 29.6 (2016): 917-962.

Zhang, Chao, et al. “Merger and Acquisition Target Selection Based on Interval Neutrosophic Multigranulation Rough Sets over Two Universes.” Symmetry 9.7 (2017): 126.