A merger of two building services giants
Meier Tobler
Building services company Walter Meier merged with building services wholesaler Tobler in January 2018, also merging the range of services in the process. After the branding specialists of our sister company Hotz Brand Consultants developed the "Twision" project brand in advance of the merger, Calydo was instructed to assist with the transformation communication, both internally and externally, and it supported the merger with various media for all relevant target groups.
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months of project running under high pressure
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employees motivated at Walter Meier
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month-long implementation process from internal announcement to merger
All key stakeholders brought on board to ensure a smooth merger
Communication plays a crucial role in corporate mergers. After all, many stakeholders, sometimes with conflicting interests, are involved in such a process and must be correctly integrated and brought on board. Walter Meier's management at the time was also aware of this when it hired Calydo and PwC to assist with the strategic planning and operational implementation of the merger with Tobler, which was kept top secret at the time.
The main task at this stage was to cultivate and win the acceptance of all important stakeholders at the right time. For this purpose, the merger was to be sold as a logical , forward-looking step, with Calydo developing the concept for the central story of the merger and creating various communication documents. These ranged from videos to Q&As, presentations, flyers & letters, road shows and town hall meetings, to targeted mailings and a crisis communication plan with different scenarios.
Shareholders & the public, employees, and customers & partners were identified as the most important stakeholders. Gaining the acceptance of the shareholders in order to obtain the additional capitalisation, that of the customers & partners, whose fears could be allayed and who could be shown the new opportunities for cooperation, as well as that of the employees, was crucial. Here, too, the focus was on communicating future opportunities within the framework of the merger and assuring them that their own jobs were secure.
Thanks to the support of Calydo, it was possible for all the preliminary work for the project to be carried out in an extremely short time frame without any mishaps, whilst achieving great customer satisfaction in the process. This allowed the project, which began in January, to be launched at the AGM in March 2017 and the merger to be officially announced in June of the same year.
