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Wealth Destruction on a Massive Scale? A Study of Acquiring-Firm Returns in the Recent Merger Wave

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Author Info
Sara B. Moeller
Frederik P. Schlingemann
Rene M. Stulz

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Abstract

Acquiring-firm shareholders lost 12 cents at the announcement of acquisitions for every dollar spent on acquisitions for a total loss of $240 billion from 1998 through 2001, whereas they lost $7 billion in all of the 1980s, or 1.6 cents per dollar spent. Though the announcement losses to acquiring-firm shareholders in the 1980s are more than offset by gains to acquired-firm shareholders, the losses of bidders exceed the gains of targets from 1998 through 2001 by $134 billion. The 1998-2001 aggregate dollar loss of acquiring-firm shareholders is so large because of a small number of acquisition announcements by firms with extremely high valuations. Without these announcements, the wealth of acquiring-firm shareholders would have increased. The large losses are consistent with the existence of negative synergies from the acquisitions, but the size of the losses in relation to the consideration paid for the acquisitions is large enough that part of the losses most likely results from investors reassessing the standalone value of the bidders. Firms that announce acquisitions with large dollar losses perform poorly afterwards.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 10200.

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Date of creation: Jan 2004
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10200

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G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Investment Policy
G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Capital and Ownership Structure

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Lucian Bebchuk & Yaniv Grinstein, 2005. "Firm Expansion and CEO Pay," NBER Working Papers 11886, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Low, Angie & Makhija, Anil K. & Sanders, Anthony B., 2007. "The Impact of Shareholder Power on Bondholders: Evidence from Mergers and Acquisitions," Working Paper Series 2007-5, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics. [Downloadable!]
  3. Abhay Abhyankar & Keng-Yu Ho & Huainan Zhao, 2005. "Long-run post-merger stock performance of UK acquiring firms: a stochastic dominance perspective," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 15(10), pages 679-690, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Sara B. Moeller & Frederik P. Schlingemann & Rene M. Schultz, 2004. "Do Acquirers With More Uncertain Growth Prospects Gain Less From Acquisitions?," Working Papers 05-17, Utrecht School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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    Other versions:
  7. Dennis C. Mueller & B. Burcin Yurtoglu, 2007. "Corporate governance and the returns to acquiring firms' shareholders: an international comparison," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(8), pages 879-896. [Downloadable!]
  8. William R. Latham & Helen Bowers, 2005. "Information Asymmetries, Litigation Risk and the Demand for Fairness Opinions: Evidence from U.S. Mergers & Acquisitions, 1980-2002," Working Papers 05-17, University of Delaware, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  9. Klaus Gugler & Dennis C. Mueller & B. Burcin Yurtoglu, 2005. "The determinants of merger waves," Working Papers 05-15, Utrecht School of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Kothari, S.P. & Loutskina, Elena & Nikolaev, Valeri, 2006. "Agency theory of overvalued equity as an explanation for the accrual anomaly," Discussion Paper 103, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
  11. Anusha Chari & Paige P. Ouimet & Linda L. Tesar, 2004. "Acquiring Control in Emerging Markets: Evidence from the Stock Market," NBER Working Papers 10872, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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