Prior to announcing a merger, companies will often hire economic consulting firms to determine whether the
firms would face scrutiny by antitrust authorities. This project is to simulate this scenario. As a team working for
a hypothetical consulting firm, students in each group will be assigned a hypothetical merger of two real world
companies. The student are to then use publicly available data to assess whether the merger would be scrutinized
by US antitrust authorities (i.e. DOJ or FTC). Each group’s specific deliverable is a report which contains your
assessment of whether the antitrust authorizes would scrutinize the merger and how you came to that
conclusion. Each student is also required to hand in a peer assessment.
Instructions: Students will be assigned to groups during class. Once groups are assigned, they will be assigned
a hypothetical merger of two firms. Students need to research each firm – this may include examining each
company’s and their competitors’ websites, financials, trade press relevant to the industry, and finding publicly
available data. Since you are assessing a potential challenge from the antitrust authorities, the type of
information and what you need to assess is outlined in the merger guidelines. Please refer to these for what
information you need to discuss in your report.
The final deliverable for the group will be a report which contains your group’s report. Each individual member
of the group is also responsible for handing in a peer evaluation form. The group’s report must contain the
following items (stapled together):
1) A one page title page that includes the semester/year, group number, and the names of each group
member in alphabetic order (even if one member of the group contributed nothing).
2) A written report which contains no more than 5 written pages (title page and work cited pages does not
count towards this limit). The first thing in this report should be a one paragraph executive summary
which notes your conclusion. The remaining part of the written report should assess how you came to
that conclusion and why that conclusion is justified.
3) (Optional) Any graphs or figures that you have created yourself that you directly cite in your report.
4) A worked cited page which contains all references cited in the report.
Technical Requirement for Report: The report need to fulfill the following technical requirements. Failure to
meet all these requirements will result in a 1 to 5 point reduction in the project grade.
- 1 inch margins on all sides
- Times new roman font
- Font size of 11
- 1 ½ times line spacing
- Page numbers on bottom of page
Sample Solution