Caractéristiques, motivations et performances des fusions et acquisitions en Tunisie

?This article provides a detailed analysis of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Tunisia. We successively characterize these operations, identify their motivations and assess their impact on the involved firms. We first construct a database of the M&A that took place between 1980 and 2009. The descriptive analysis shows that this very recent phenomenon in Tunisia really began developing in 1995. The M&A are more common in the industrial sector and mainly occur in Greater Tunis and coastal regions. Moreover, they are quasi-exclusively horizontal and realized between firms in the same sector. Finally, they are considered as a means for large Tunisian firms to grow by acquiring SMEs. We secondly conduct a survey in order to analyze the motivations and performance of these operations. Our results show that the main motivations for M&A are economies of scope and synergies, improvement of the profitability of the new entity and tax savings. Finally, we propose an evaluation of the M&A?s performances based on two classical approaches: the economic and accounting ratio approach and the financial approach, using event studies. It turns out that the M&A do not have any significant impact on economic and accounting firms? performances. However, the financial approach shows significant decreases in cumulative abnormal returns for the listed Tunisian firms involved in such an operation, both for the acquiring firms and the targets.?