New Evidence and Perspective on Mergers – A One Page Summary
The authors of this article have provided further evidence on the value of mergers and acquisitions by updating the database to include facts for the 1990s to empirical research. They came to a conclusion that mergers seem to create shareholder value, with most of the gains accruing to the target company.
In arriving at their conclusion, they reviewed issues on why mergers occur. They reviewed reasons for merger that appear to be more relevant in certain time periods. They argue that industries tend to restructure and consolidate in concentrated periods of time, that these changes occur suddenly, and that they are hard to predict. However, they state that explaining the long-term effects of mergers, and what makes some successful and others not, is still a question that remains largely unanswered. They also identify that, although merger and acquisition activity, occurs in readily identifiable waves over time, these waves are not alike. In fact, the identity of the industries that make up each merger boom varies tremendously.
After identifying why and how mergers occur, the authors go ahead to identify winners and losers in the merger game. They identify that the most statistically reliable evidence on whether mergers create value for shareholders comes from traditional short-window event studies. The authors argue that the target firms consistently have abnormal returns of 16% in the announcement period across decade and across different industries. This compares to an average three-day abnormal return for acquirers of -0.7 percent. They also noted that the average announcement period abnormal return estimate for target firms is remarkably stable across decades. While mergers seem to create value for shareholders overall, the announcement period gains from the mergers accrue entirely to the target firm