IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jfinan/v47y1992i1p107-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Success of Acquisitions: Evidence from Divestitures

Author

Listed:
  • Kaplan, Steven N
  • Weisbach, Michael S

Abstract

This paper studies a sample of large acquisitions completed between 1971 and 1982. By the end of 1989, acquirers have divested almost 44 percent of the target companies. The authors characterize the ex post success of the divested acquisitions and consider 34 percent to 50 percent of classified divestitures as unsuccessful. Acquirer returns and total (acquirer and target) returns at the acquisition announcement are significantly lower for unsuccessful divestitures than for successful divestitures and acquisitions not divested. Although diversifying acquisitions are almost four times more likely to be divested than related acquisitions, they do not find strong evidence that diversifying acquisitions are less successful than related ones. Copyright 1992 by American Finance Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Kaplan, Steven N & Weisbach, Michael S, 1992. "The Success of Acquisitions: Evidence from Divestitures," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(1), pages 107-138, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:47:y:1992:i:1:p:107-38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-1082%28199203%2947%3A1%3C107%3ATSOAEF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jensen, Michael C. & Ruback, Richard S., 1983. "The market for corporate control : The scientific evidence," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(1-4), pages 5-50, April.
    2. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1990. "Do Managerial Objectives Drive Bad Acquisitions?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(1), pages 31-48, March.
    3. Bradley, Michael & Desai, Anand & Kim, E. Han, 1988. "Synergistic gains from corporate acquisitions and their division between the stockholders of target and acquiring firms," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 3-40, May.
    4. Scherer, F M, 1988. "Corporate Takeovers: The Efficiency Arguments," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 69-82, Winter.
    5. Mitchell, Mark L & Lehn, Kenneth, 1990. "Do Bad Bidders Become Good Targets?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 372-398, April.
    6. Demsetz, Harold, 1983. "The Structure of Ownership and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 26(2), pages 375-390, June.
    7. Eckbo, B. Espen & Langohr, Herwig, 1989. "Information disclosure, method of payment, and takeover premiums : Public and private tender offers in France," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 363-403.
    8. Klein, April, 1986. "The Timing and Substance of Divestiture Announcements: Individual, Simultaneous and Cumulative Effects," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 41(3), pages 685-696, July.
    9. Jain, Prem C, 1985. "The Effect of Voluntary Sell-off Announcements on Shareholder Wealth," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 40(1), pages 209-224, March.
    10. Warner, Jerold B. & Watts, Ross L. & Wruck, Karen H., 1988. "Stock prices and top management changes," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 461-492, January.
    11. Weisbach, Michael S., 1988. "Outside directors and CEO turnover," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 431-460, January.
    12. Robin Marris, 1963. "A Model of the "Managerial" Enterprise," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 77(2), pages 185-209.
    13. Jensen, Michael C, 1988. "Takeovers: Their Causes and Consequences," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 21-48, Winter.
    14. J. Fred Weston, 1989. "Divestitures: Mistakes Or Learning," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 2(2), pages 68-76, June.
    15. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1988. "Value Maximization and the Acquisition Process," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 2(1), pages 7-20, Winter.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    2. Martynova, M. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2005. "Takeover Waves : Triggers, Performance and Motives," Discussion Paper 2005-029, Tilburg University, Tilburg Law and Economic Center.
    3. Martynova, M., 2006. "The market for corporate control and corporate governance regulation in Europe," Other publications TiSEM 8651e281-4914-41f2-ac14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    4. Spencer, Carolyn & Akhigbe, Aigbe & Madura, Jeff, 1998. "Impact of partial control on policies enacted by partial targets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 425-445, May.
    5. Martynova, Marina & Renneboog, Luc, 2008. "A century of corporate takeovers: What have we learned and where do we stand?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 2148-2177, October.
    6. Chang, Eric C. & Lin, Tse-Chun & Ma, Xiaorong, 2019. "Does short-selling threat discipline managers in mergers and acquisitions decisions?," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1).
    7. Winson Chan & David Emanuel, 2011. "Board governance and acquirers’ returns: A study of Australian acquisitions," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 36(2), pages 174-199, August.
    8. Alexander Radygin & Revold Entov & Marina Turuntseva & Alena Gontmakher & Harry Swain & Jeff Carruthers & Karen Minden & Cheryl Urban, 2002. "The problems of corporate governance in Russia and its regions," Published Papers 12, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2002.
    9. Nenova, Tatiana, 2006. "Takeover laws and financial development," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4029, The World Bank.
    10. Martynova, M. & Renneboog, L.D.R., 2006. "The Performance of the European Market for Corporate Control : Evidence from the 5th Takeover Wave," Other publications TiSEM af864e61-b989-415e-ba58-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    11. Marco Bigelli & Stefano Mengoli, 2004. "Sub-Optimal Acquisition Decisions under a Majority Shareholder System," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 8(4), pages 373-405, October.
    12. Renneboog, Luc & Vansteenkiste, Cara, 2019. "Failure and success in mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 650-699.
    13. Franks, Julian & Mayer, Colin, 1996. "Hostile takeovers and the correction of managerial failure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 163-181, January.
    14. Dickerson, Andrew P. & Gibson, Heather D. & Tsakalotos, Euclid, 2002. "Takeover risk and the market for corporate control: the experience of British firms in the 1970s and 1980s," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 1167-1195, October.
    15. Bhargava, Rahul & Faircloth, Sheri & Zeng, Hongchao, 2017. "Takeover protection and stock price crash risk: Evidence from state antitakeover laws," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 177-184.
    16. Ana I. Fernández & Silvia Gómez-Ansón, 1999. "Un estudio de las Ofertas Públicas de Adquisición en el mercado de valores español," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 23(3), pages 471-495, September.
    17. Jorge Farinha & Francisco Miranda, 2003. "Run-up, toeholds, and agency effects in mergers and acquisitions: evidence from an emerging market," CEF.UP Working Papers 0311, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    18. Ravid, S. Abraham & Spiegel, Matthew, 1999. "Toehold strategies, takeover laws and rival bidders," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(8), pages 1219-1242, August.
    19. Carline, Nicholas F. & Linn, Scott C. & Yadav, Pradeep K., 2014. "Corporate governance and the nature of takeover resistance," CFR Working Papers 14-01, University of Cologne, Centre for Financial Research (CFR).
    20. Andreou, Panayiotis C. & Louca, Christodoulos & Panayides, Photis M., 2012. "Valuation effects of mergers and acquisitions in freight transportation," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(6), pages 1221-1234.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jfinan:v:47:y:1992:i:1:p:107-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.