Joint Ventures: The Next Frontiers of Analysis

In a 1993 interview, Peter Drucker commented that: “Businesses used to grow in one of two ways: from grassroots up or by acquisition. ... Today businesses grow through alliances, all kinds of dangerous liaisons and joint ventures, which, by the way, very few people understand.”1 In some ways, a lot has changed since then. Over the ensuing decades, business practitioners and their advisors, including lawyers and consultants, have come to understand the importance and challenges of joint ventures and other partnerships, and have grown much more sophisticated in conceiving and evaluating collaborationbased strategies, structuring joint venture transactions, screening and performing due diligence on joint venture counterparties, and governing and managing joint ventures.