Mergermarket

Mergermarket is an international newswire covering global markets and acquisitions. It was acquired by ION Analytics in 2019.

When I joined Mergermarket in Paris in October 2019, we had a bureau chief, an in-bureau reporter (me), and 3-4 freelancers throughout the country.

By March 2020, we had lost our Bureau Chief, COVID was raging, and most French businesses either temporarily shuttered or was just barely functioning. All our freelancers stopped producing, leaving me as the sole member of the French bureau producing articles.

Note: COVID in France played out very differently than it did in North America. In France, businesses closed up shop, and ceased most business activities. Workers stopped working, for weeks and months on end.

​Despite these enormous headwinds, I was able to keep producing a steady stream of stories going, and outpace other European bureaux in terms of subscriptions.

Highlights:
  • Persistently contacted press offices and secured interviews with CEOs, COOs, and CFOs of more than 300 French companies, including Accor, Schneider Electric, Vinci, Saint-Gobin, Veolia, Albioma, Delta Plus, Korian, and others
  • Tracked and explained a series of changing French regulations to mitigate the impact of COVID:
    • Chômage partiel: the French government spent 31 billion euros to allow French workers to work less and companies to remain solvent;
    • Guaranteed loans: The French government maid 300 billion euros in loans available for French companies to use during this period, and I interrogated the C-suite of 300+ companies to determine how they were choosing to use these funds;
    • Direct aid to fragile enterprises: The French government made 20 billion euros available to assist companies in difficulty, such as Renault and Air France. Several of the companies I interviewed received these funds, and I interviewed their C-suites on how it was using the funds to keep their businesses afloat.
  • Ran the France bureau solo. Freelancers were uninterested in contributing during the early months of COVID, which left output from the bureau solely up to me.
  • Even so, the French bureau was the sole European bureau at Mergermarket to not only NOT LOSE subscribers, but also to see a spike in the number of subscribers (+12.5%)