Wanting Out of a Partnership
Nina Kaufman
1 Comment
Reports last week indicated that Siemens, the German conglomerate, was looking to end its partnership with Fujitsu Siemens Computer. According to CNET News.com, the nine-year-old joint venture could be valued at between $3.12 billion and $4.65 billion.
With numbers like that, it's crucial to have a clearly-defined exit strategy.
Especially without numbers like that, you need to have a clearly-defined exit strategy. Both companies seemed to feel that the joint venture partnership no longer met their needs or squared with their business goals. For any alliance looking at a long-term horizon, there are a host of reasons that you might need to get out. Make sure you've thought yours through.
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Reader Comments (1)
Interesting coincidence to see this post this week. I attended a meeting of my local chapter of the Association of Strategic Alliance Professionals this week where the topic of exit strategies in alliances and joint ventures was discussed in detail. In a fairly short meeting of thought-leaders in this area, there were several mentions of the problems that arise in partnership break-ups when dealing with intellectual property ownership. Therefore, it is worth mentioning that, due to the specific legal issues arising as a matter of law in intellectual property, before one enters into an alliance or joint venture involving technology or product development, the exit strategy needs to be contemplated and papered in the up-front legal agreements. Yes, clients hate to be told that they may break up with their alliance or joint venture partner before the relationship even starts, but such a "pre-nup" is critical when the partnership involves technology development.