Roll-Up

Utilities in the United States were once split among a large number of small, separate companies, and over the past few decades that landscape has steadily changed as firms have merged and combined. Roll-Up follows this story from that fragmented starting point, through the way the industry came to view consolidation and its own role in it, to the forces and events that shaped each phase of the modern period, which runs from 1995 to 2020.

Tom Flaherty, a utilities consultant with decades of experience, interviewed eleven people who were involved in these deals: current or former chief executives, investment bankers, attorneys, and ratings analysts. Their accounts show how they judged whether to pursue a transaction, weighed the logic of a possible combination, drafted merger agreements, and set up the process that gave a deal its best chance of success. They also describe guiding transactions through strategy, financing, regulatory review, and post-merger integration.

Flaherty combines these firsthand conversations with detailed research and his own long experience in the field, giving readers a close look at how utility consolidation has unfolded.