CBI’S EUROPEAN SINGLE MARKET ‘1992’ INITIATIVE, 1988-89

By 1988, the European Community (later the EU) had committed to establishing the European Single Market from 1992. 

As part of its renaissance at the time, the Confederation of British Industry took on the role of preparing the country’s businesses for it.  They identified partners with a range of skillsets to produce seminars and write books.  Hill Samuel Bank was adopted as the expert on corporate strategy, with a focus on mergers & acquisitions. 

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I ran the bank’s involvement while part of its corporate finance division’s business development team.  It involved my researching and writing a book on the subject (Mergers, Acquisitions & Alternative Corporate Strategies), which included case studies based on candid interviews I conducted with senior industrialists about their experiences of corporate activity on the Continent. 

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The project also included my running a national series of seminars for the bank: preparing the lectures and helping to train the bank’s directors deliver them effectively.  And I personally gave lectures on the European Single Market at the London School of Economics and in Australia.