Businesses looking toward expansion often see opportunities by merging or acquiring foreign companies. By incorporating these international companies, a business can quickly gain a local presence in an entirely new country or world region.
But aside from the normal negotiations and requirements for due diligence, these deals have the added complexity of multiple languages. In order to ensure all goes smoothly, quickly and with as little risk as possible, companies should look for the following when hiring a translation partner:
- Speed of Response: Particularly in the corporate finance world, deals move quickly. If important financial reports land on the desk of a deal maker in the U.S., he/she needs to be able to understand the data quickly and accurately. The language service provider needs to be able to guarantee a quick turnaround on all documents.
- Legal and Financial Expertise: Even more important than speed, however, is the accuracy of the literal and implied meaning of all translated documents. Translators in mergers and acquisitions need to have a deep knowledge of legal and financial terminology as well as common industry and product terms. They also need to be resource to deal makers to explain terms or expressions that may not have a direct equivalent.
- Cultural Sensitivity: As AOT President Dimitra Hengen learned at the ALC UnConference, doing cross-border business comes with cultural differences, regulatory problems and language barriers. The multilingual translator must be sensitive to these and coach the deal-makers to avoid any misunderstandings.
- Personal Touch in Negotiations: The ability to communicate with prospective partners—not just by translating their written material but also by interpreting live discussions in their own language—will improve the deal-making process and improve relationships.
- Experience: Mergers and acquisitions are often high stakes with high potential rewards and risks. Businesses need a translation partner who has experience in this particular area and be an important part of the deal team.
Alpha Omega Translations has helped business clients achieve success outcomes in internal mergers and acquisitions. Please contact us for advice on coordinating multilingual negotiations.
For an overview of our translation expertise, visit our financial translation page