In the current highly uncertain economic environment, corporate decision making is increasingly difficult. Strategic questions abound. Should excess cash flows be reinvested in the firm or distributed to shareholders? Does restructuring through a combination of divestitures and spin-offs make sense? Should firms continue to “buy” growth through M&As and run the risk of overpaying, making achieving required shareholder returns more challenging? Should corporate executives stay with what they know or diversify? Should firms downsize their operations to better focus on markets in which their core competencies give them a competitive advantage? These are important questions with no easy answers, that accountants are roped into answering every single day. While this webinar, and the rest of the webinars in this series, does not promise quick answers to these demanding questions, it does offer insight into all aspects of the corporate restructuring process from takeovers and joint ventures to divestitures and spin-offs and equity carve-outs and reorganizing businesses. This webinar discusses the 10 phases typical of an M&A process. While not all M&As unfold in exactly the same way, the process outlined in this section serves as a road map for executing deals. This process is sufficiently flexible to be applicable to alternatives to M&As, such as business alliances. The process for implementing an M&A could be employed by a firm seeking to divest a business, since the selling process involves the identification of potential buyers, approaching such buyers, and negotiating a completed deal. Highly effective sellers often readily understand how prospective buyers think and attempt to tailor the marketing of the business to satisfy the highest-priority needs of potential buyers. Thus, a successful seller often is one who has been a successful buyer.