Trading costs around M&A announcements

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine trading costs of both acquiring firms and target firms differentiated by method of payment, mode of acquisition, and deal attitude around merger and acquisition (M&A) announcements. The author calculates four spread measures of trading costs: quoted spread, percentage quoted spread, effective spread, and percentage effective spread. Design/methodology/approach - Differences in spreads differentiated by M&A characteristics are calculated and two‐samplet‐tests applied. A linear regression model is developed to test whether changes in trading costs are related to acquiring firm's post‐merger price performance. The regression is estimated by OLS method. Findings - It is found that various methods of payment affect the spreads of target firm differently on certain days around M&A announcement. For acquiring firms, significant differences are found in spreads between cash offers and stock offers, and between stock offers and mix offers. Significant difference was not found in spreads between cash offers and mix offers. The mode of acquisition affects the bid‐ask spreads of target firms only, but not those of acquiring firms. Deal attitudes affect the spreads of target firms on and after M&A announcements. It was also found that all four spread measures are significantly linked to acquiring firms’ post‐merger daily returns. Research limitations/implications - Further study can be done on mechanisms through which M&A characteristics impact trading costs. Practical implications - This study suggests that M&A characteristics affect firms’ spreads and that changes in spreads need to be accounted for in explaining acquiring firms’ post‐merger daily returns. Originality/value - The paper fills in an important gap in existing literature by examining trading costs of acquiring firms around M&A announcements. It provides additional evidence on the anomaly of acquiring firm's negative post‐merger returns. The paper is intended to help improve the understanding of trading costs and the behavior of the market participants in response to a major corporate event.