What Happens When Brands Change Hands?
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From headline deals like Vodafone-Three or home builder, Barratt buying rival, Redrow, corporate mergers and takeovers are on the rise. Evan Davis and guests take a fresh look at what happens when companies combine. They discuss why deal-making is growing, why execs turn to M&A, what can go wrong and whether mergers deliver growth or simply disguise deeper problems.
Guests: Vittorio Colao, CEO at Vodafone Group 2008-2018, and now Vice Chairman, EMEA, General Atlantic Pip Hulbert, CCO for International Markets at VML Farshid Azadegan, Director of BEC Distribution
Production team: Presenter: Evan Davis Producer: Sally Abrahams Production Co-ordinator: Katie Morrison Sound engineers: Russell Newlove and Andy Garratt Editor: Matt Willis
The Bottom Line is produced in partnership with The Open University
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello, you're about to listen to a BBC podcast, and I'm Ed Gamble, host of another BBC podcast, The Traitors Uncloaked. |
| 0:12.7 | But my show is available only on BBC Sounds, just like Ellis and John's Saturday bonus episodes, |
| 0:18.2 | The Pop Top Ten podcast with Scott Mills and Rylan, and comedy specials |
| 0:22.2 | from the likes of Harriet Kemsley, Susie Ruffel and Rommashranganathan. However, and maybe I'm biased, |
| 0:27.9 | it's really all about the traitors uncoaked. So for a whole bunch of exclusive scoops and |
| 0:32.6 | podcasts, listen only on BBC Sounds. Hello there, Thank you for listening to the bottom line. |
| 0:38.3 | We're here every week in podcast form and on Radio 4. |
| 0:42.4 | And today we're talking deals, takeovers, mergers and acquisitions. |
| 0:47.4 | Before we do, let me just tell you about a recent episode of our podcast on car parks. |
| 0:53.2 | It's an industry with few fans. But how does it really work? |
| 0:56.7 | We find out where the money goes and why motorists have to pay in the first place. Do listen to |
| 1:02.3 | that. Anyway, let's get to the main event and today we return to a topic that is a business perennial. |
| 1:08.2 | That is, what happens when companies combine? Yes, we're entering the |
| 1:12.4 | world of corporate mergers and takeovers to see what can go wrong and how to make them go right. |
| 1:18.2 | Now, it's a fitting moment to take a fresh look at this topic as there was growing interest |
| 1:22.2 | in acquisitions last year. Foreign takeovers of British companies, well, they jumped by |
| 1:27.4 | three quarters over the year before, |
| 1:29.3 | a very, very big jump, and UK merger and acquisitions activity, M&A. That grew by a fifth as well, |
| 1:36.5 | according to the Financial Times. Now, why the jump? Demerger's work as intended, or are they |
| 1:42.7 | just a restless distraction from executive teams who've run out |
| 1:46.3 | of good ideas for improving their own businesses? Just by way of example, a big one that was |
... |
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