Bank Mergers: The deal closed. 3 Ways to consider celebrating.

The deal closed.

There are a whole host of emotions.

How do you celebrate?

And, with whom?

Management Team

It’s important to celebrate this milestone with your team and to affirm their transformation into the value-driven leaders they have become.

Sadly, many leaders are so competitive when we finally accomplish a goal, we don’t ‘waste time’ on celebrating because we are already moving onto the next challenge.

I have been guilty of that myself, moving instead to, “What’s next on the list?”

What you need to keep in mind is most people are not so obsessively self-motivated.

They would like to be acknowledged.

Specifically, they want to hear from their leader that a win was truly a win.

A win worthy of celebrating.

It’s important for them to hear, “You’ve changed.

You’re different now.

You’re stronger, more competent, more capable.

Congratulations, you did it!”

Celebrating the win is how to let them know they’ve changed, they’ve become more competent, stronger, and more capable.

The celebration needs to be memorialized, and it should be relative to the success.

A dinner at a very nice restaurant with your team and their spouses or special guests would be worthy of consideration and would demonstrate your appreciation.

As the leader, you should memorialize it with words as well.

The team can’t read your mind.

Letting everybody know why you are celebrating is important.

You need to let them know how much they’ve changed since the day they became a part of the team.

You don’t need to go through each individual or the individual changes that have taken place in this group setting.

But you do need to ask them to think back on who they were on the day they first walked in.

Then point out the accomplishments the team has made ultimately ending in the win.

Ask them to think about who they are now, and all the things they can do now versus the day they walked in.

A transformation has taken place for every one of them.

They have changed.

They are different.

They are stronger, more competent, and more capable.

Nobody can ever take that away from them.

This dinner with the team may be best to have six to nine months following closing.

Allow the changes to settle in.

By the time you have this dinner, some may no longer be with the buyer, but an invitation is extended because the dinner is a celebration for the people who built the bank to what it was prior to the change-in-control. Now, others may be past the head-spinning changes and at a place where the message can be heard.

The point of this dinner isn’t to focus on the present—it is to celebrate these individuals and their transformation with this win.

Investment Bankers/Deal Team

Another celebration dinner you may likely have will be with the investment bankers as their guests.

The attendees for this dinner can take many different shapes and forms. It might include the board, the board and spouses and guests, the deal team, or the deal team, spouses and guests, or perhaps the management team and management team and spouses or guests.

The choice is often left up to you, the seller.

Our investment bankers gave us the option to choose who we wanted to attend our closing dinner.

We chose to have this dinner with the deal team only.

The deal team and the investment bankers form a bond during this time because they are working closely with one another.

We chose to have the dinner about 60 days after closing, so the conversation was naturally going to involve many of the stories about the transaction and we thought it best to stick with the deal team.

It was a wonderful evening and appreciated greatly by our team.

Your experience could be something totally different.

Your investment bankers may, or may not, choose to have a closing dinner.

Accordingly, they may have their own idea of who should attend or may leave it up to you.

Board

An additional celebration dinner we had was with the board.

No spouses or guests or deal team or management.

Just the board.

These were the people remaining, the ones who were there from the start.

It was important to me to have a celebration dinner with them where we could speak freely about the bank through the entire process. Conversation could go back to the start of the bank, through the sale, and not bore spouses with stories that would require endless context.

This dinner was about 90 days after closing.

The timing was chosen because it was far enough along to let the transaction closing settle.

It allowed for all to decompress and have some time to reflect.

I am providing what we did, and the thought processes involved so you have examples in which to add to your individual planning process.

How you manage this is entirely your call.

However, it is very important to celebrate the win, to memorialize the transformation with words, and thank those responsible.

Action Plan:

• Who would you invite for your closing celebration dinners?
• How many dinners would you have?
• Where would they be?
• The legacy bank will no longer exist when you have these dinners, can you prepay (at least a chunk of it) before the deal closes? Remember you’re on the buyer’s expense account following closing. I didn’t prepay with the bank’s funds – paid for the management team and board dinners myself – you may choose to do that too. It is just something to consider beforehand.

Your path will:

• Inform your strategic plan.
• Guide your annual business plan and budget.
• Clarify priorities.
• Define your message so it can be communicated with confidence.

This is how savvy bankers navigate.

They build smart and valuable banks and choose the best time to sell – serving the needs of the shareholders and the board.

I hope you found this short lesson helpful.

What are your thoughts?

I’ll see you next week.