In a recent article in the Houston Business Journal (HBJ), entitled “Building strong relationships critical to building strong companies”, HBJ Mergers and Acquisitions Columnist Connie Barnaba focused on the nature of trust within a company to posit that “strong businesses are built on strong relationships between the business, its leaders, employees, customers, suppliers, lenders and advisors.” Trust cascades down each level of a company; beginning from the Board of Directors down to employees and then out the door to customers. She believes that this issue of trust is equally important in the Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) context. I believe her ideas are very useful for the compliance practitioner, when integrating a new acquisition into an existing compliance culture.

Barnaba writes that “trusting relationships are developed person to person as individuals in a company gradually develop a network of contacts, associates and advisors inside and outside the company.” But more than this it is “the by-product of responsiveness, reliability and candor or those we reach out to.” Successful companies work to focus on “sustaining and developing new relationships” as a key to the continued growth and successful performance of a business.