M&A stupidity is not the same as fraud though. M&A is hard. It's not unreasonable for execs to tell the team not to do X because they're buying it, and then to screw it up.
It's also normal for companies to want to buy via a dealer because they don't want to deal with your little startups legal issues, compliance, regulatory, billing. They just want to deal with small tier of vendors.
In fact, that's kind of a startup idea: AppStore for SaaS because most corps don't want to deal with your little vendor BS. Everyone would be happy to pay an extra 10% just to have everything easy and clear.
I'm privy to more details than I am giving out. I've been in SV for over 15 years and I have seen a lot in that time. I'm aware of what is normal. There is normal purchasing intermediaries and then there are purpose built bribe vehicles. We're not talking 10% it's more like 100% to 1000%.
Yes, I'm not denying it's common, just that it doesn't have to be that.
That so many M&A deals are so blatantly shady it completely shocks me that CEOs/Boards/Shareholders aren't more vigilant about it.
In your view, are the the most respected firms more or less immune from that, (maybe because they do really well and don't need to), or are they the worst offenders? Or is there a differentiation for simple favours for favours i.e. VC ABC wants to find a home for a project and it actually does make some sense that company XYZ would want to buy it, the deal is done and that's that. Maybe the M&A lead at XYZ later does get a nice job somewhere, but is it really that sweet of a deal to the point wherein it constitutes fraud? Is the M&A guy really getting a simple consulting job that pays 'many millions'? Or is it in XYZ's best interest to have a good relationship with the VC firm and to buy the semi crap companies so they get access to the good one's as well? And what percentage of M&A deals would you say follow this angle?
I don't know of any firm immune to it and I've worked with a couple of the most prestigious and hear about many others. I've long given up wishing people were better. And unfortunately I expect it to get much worse. As the financial crushing of the middle class increases I would expect much more corruption as being middle class / poor becomes more humiliating. I expect this to give way to mobsterism that would make current levels of capitalist fraud look like paytime.
It's also normal for companies to want to buy via a dealer because they don't want to deal with your little startups legal issues, compliance, regulatory, billing. They just want to deal with small tier of vendors.
In fact, that's kind of a startup idea: AppStore for SaaS because most corps don't want to deal with your little vendor BS. Everyone would be happy to pay an extra 10% just to have everything easy and clear.