Random Story, or I'm Sitting on a (Possible) Announcement

In a previous job, I was involved in mergers and acquisitions. These were with small, privately-held companies, so the scale wasn't that big, and the list of decision-makers was quite small.

At any rate, my company had verbally agreed to buy another company. The other company had verbally agreed to be bought. Well, they'd said "yeah, looks like a good deal, I think we'll sell."

So, I was at work, literally writing up the press release announcing said deal when my phone rang. It was the owner of the other company. "I talked to my board last night," he said. "We decided not to sell."

I thanked him for calling me, deleted the press release, and told my boss.

Thus, I can be a bit reluctant to announce that a deal is done until, well, a deal is done.