Border control

Cross-border issues always add extra complexity to M&A deals. But in the Cemex acquisition of RMC, co-lead managed by Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, there was clearly no language barrier, writes Nick Kochan.When you are doing a cross-border deal, it helps if your codename makes sense in your client’s language as well as your own. This was not quite the case in Cemex’s purchase of RMC in September. When the English-speaking bankers referred to the deal among themselves, they called it Bromium. When they talked to their Spanish-speaking clients, they called it Bromo. And the bankers also had different interpretations of the name: one thought it was named Bromo after a volcano in Java, while another thought it was called Bromium after an ingredient in cement. Cross-border communication between bankers and client might have got horridly confused. In fact, relations were faultless.