Hitting the right note for M&A employee communications
The London Stock Exchange Group’s acquisition of global data specialist Refinitiv in February 2021 marked the culmination of an eighteen month move to close
the deal. Bladonmore worked with the LSEG and Refinitiv teams as specialist advisers on internal messaging – creating materials to explain the deal to the 25,000 employees across the two former groups.
Approach
Given a tight timescale of just four weeks, the project had four key challenges:
- Align two large entities each with a unique heritage behind a single purpose and identity.
- Ensure the content and presentation of the new organisation accurately reflected the ambition of the combined group.
- Secure support of the executive leadership teams and lawyers around the developing content to get sign-off within tight timeframes.
- Maintain confidentiality and be consistently flexible on the content as the transaction had not been given the final green light or been announced.
The messaging needed to create an immediate impact with employees – communicating a sense of excitement and opportunity in a simple, accessible format. That meant creating a mix of content types: from graphics, to video content.
Result
The digital Playbook went live on Day One at the end of January 2021 – and was accessed 5,360 times within 24 hours. It became the primary channel by which all 25,000 employees across the globe could learn about the combined Group.
The LSEG Executive team were delighted with the outcome and felt that it helped all employees gain great insight into the newly combined Group. “We created a powerful central resource that reflects our freshly formed brand and voice to inform and engage our global team,” said Brigitte Trafford, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer.
