Lauren Thomas, the lead deals reporter at The Wall Street Journal, spoke with Meredith Klein of Meredith & the Media about how she covers mergers and acquisitions
Here is an excerpt:
- As Lead Deals Reporter, you’re focused on mergers and acquisitions and shareholder activism. How do you get most of your stories?
- This job is all about relationships at the end of the day. My first year on the M&A beat, I was never in the office. I was out there meeting everyone— bankers, lawyers, PR firms, advisors, etc. You cast a wide net and get in front of the power players and movers and shakers on Wall Street. The longer you’re in your role, the better you get a sense of who’s doing the work, who’s with what company, etc., and you can map it out and organize and connect the dots in your head.
- It’s really about who you know and a lot of meeting with people—catching up with people over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And sometimes, it’s the smaller things you pick up on in the conversation. They don’t seem like much at the time, but you can take it to someone and say, “I heard this … have you heard anything about this?” It snowballs, and then all of a sudden, you’re chasing a scoop.
- In this job, you need to stay in front of conversations and know the right people so that when things are getting announced, they’re either strategically giving you the scoop, or you’re in the right place at the right time and know the right people to get the scoop. I’m always positioning myself, and I’m straightforward. The harder ones to get are when they don’t want the story to leak out and I’m trying to piece it together before the press release gets out. It can be exhausting.
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