Two years before the turn of the millennium, two UK pharmaceutical giants planned a massive, £100bn merger. GlaxoWellcome and SmithKline Beecham were two of the country's biggest companies and together they would have formed the world's largest drugs company.
The combined company, said analysts at the time, would be "totally untouchable". There were few product overlaps and significant cost savings. Barely a month later, the talks collapsed with hundreds of millions of pounds being wiped off the value of the two companies as a result.
Shareholders, analysts and rivals were bemused about what might have gone wrong. SmithKline cited only "insurmountable differences" such as its "approach to the possible merger, management philosophy and corporate culture."
It was some time before the truth emerged. The chief executives of the two organisations—Richard Sykes at Glaxo and Jan Leschly at SmithKline—simply could not agree who would run the company. Both alpha males wanted the top job, even if not having it meant the entire deal collapsed and all the benefits to shareholders disappeared. It was two years before the merger was stitched back together and, when it eventually did happen, neither Sykes nor Leschly stayed with the firm in an executive role.
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