Most big companies now employ a senior executive and dedicated team to manage their dealmaking. Corporate Dealmaker is the first publication for and about this high-powered audience. With mergers in full swing, corporate executives will be turning to this targeted source of information and best practices to help them meet the challenges of buying and selling assets, conducting due diligence, negotiating terms and integrating companies.

For the cover story of the spring issue, editor Ken Klee spoke with top executives at IBM Corp., for a in-depth look at their use of strategic acquisitions (some 30 in the last decade) to help build the company's powerhouse software group. The software group had $14.3 billion in revenues last year and is the linchpin of IBM's ambitious "on demand" strategy.

Other articles examine:

• The important role that proxy services Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis (a new competitor) play in helping big investors decide on takeovers and other major matters, such as Michael Eisner's tenure as chairman of Disney. Senior writer Matt Miller reports.
• The complex relationship between corporate dealmakers and private equity investors, who now have hundreds of billions of dollars to invest and last year accounted for 13% of M&A activity. Reporter Brenon Daly spoke with multiple market participants, including former GE chairman Jack Welch, who now works in private equity at Clayton Dubilier & Rice.
• The sophisticated approach to post-merger integration developed by Cemex, the Mexico-based global cement giant and one of the subjects of a study by the Corporate Strategy Board.
• How the pick up in merger activity could affect M&A departments at Wall Street investment banks. As reporter Heidi Moore notes in the "Deal Community" section: "The increasing savvy of corporate dealmakers has caused M&A bankers to revise the definition of what they offer clients."
• How Richard Bressler, CFO of Viacom, mixes dealmaking, such as the $1.23 billion purchase last year of a 50% stake in Comedy Central from Time Warner, with other crucial duties. Reporter Peter Lauria explains in the "Job Description" column.
• Human resources issues (post-merger integration of dissimilar sales forces) and legal topics (the proper use of confidentiality agreements in setting the tone for a deal).

 About Corporate Dealmaker
Corporate Dealmaker, launched by The Deal LLC in November 2003, is a quarterly publication written expressly for corporate executives with strategy and finance responsibilities at large corporations. The magazine is distributed to more than 8,500 c-level and senior executives at the nation's top 1,000 companies. For more information about the magazine or to subscribe, visit www.TheDeal.com/CorporateDealmaker.

About The Deal LLC
The Deal LLC is a diversified media company that is the authoritative voice of the deal economy. We serve the global deal community - corporate and financial dealmakers, advisers and institutional investors - by providing business and financial news and information that offers fresh insights on the deal economy, a set of interrelated activities, focused on dealmaking of all kinds, whose purpose is to generate corporate growth in a continually changing global market. We offer a comprehensive line of print and electronic product and services for both readers and advertisers, including The Deal, The Daily Deal, TheDeal.com, Corporate Dealmaker, Tech Confidential, Corporate Control Alert, Auction Block, Bankruptcy Insider, Deal Focus and VCDeal.com. Investors in The Deal, a privately held company, include majority owner U.S. Equity Partners, a private investment fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co. LP, and Rustic Canyon Ventures, one of the largest venture capital funds in Southern California.