IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/nhhfms/2011_008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Merger negotiations with stock market feedback

Author

Listed:
  • Betton, Sandra

    (John Molson School of Business, Concordia University)

  • Eckbo, B. Espen

    (Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College)

  • Thompson, Rex

    (Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University)

  • Thorburn, Karin S.

    (Dept. of Finance and Management Science, Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration)

Abstract

Merger negotiations routinely occur amidst economically significant a target stock price runups. Since the source of the runup is unobservable (is it a target stand-alone value change and/or deal anticipation?), feeding the runup back into the offer price risks "paying twice" for the target shares. We present a novel structural empirical analysis of this runup feedback hypothesis. We show that rational deal anticipation implies a nonlinear relationship between the runup and the offer price markup (offer price minus runup). Our large-sample tests confirm the existence of this nonlinearity and reject the feedback hypothesis for the portion of the runup not driven by the market return over the runup period. Also, rational bidding implies that bidder takeover gains are increasing in target runups, which our evidence supports. Bidder toehold acquisitions in the runup period are shown to fuel target runups, but lower rather than raise offer premiums. We conclude that the parties to merger negotiations interpret market-adjusted target runups as reflecting deal anticipation.

Suggested Citation

  • Betton, Sandra & Eckbo, B. Espen & Thompson, Rex & Thorburn, Karin S., 2011. "Merger negotiations with stock market feedback," Discussion Papers 2011/8, Norwegian School of Economics, Department of Business and Management Science.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:nhhfms:2011_008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/164012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Betton, Sandra & Eckbo, B Espen, 2000. "Toeholds, Bid Jumps, and Expected Payoffs in Takeovers," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 13(4), pages 841-882.
    2. Jeremy Bulow & Ming Huang & Paul Klemperer, 1999. "Toeholds and Takeovers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(3), pages 427-454, June.
    3. Goldman, Eitan & Qian, Jun, 2005. "Optimal toeholds in takeover contests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 321-346, August.
    4. Philip Bond & Itay Goldstein & Edward Simpson Prescott, 2010. "Market-Based Corrective Actions," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(2), pages 781-820, February.
    5. Bargeron, Leonce L. & Schlingemann, Frederik P. & Stulz, René M. & Zutter, Chad J., 2008. "Why do private acquirers pay so little compared to public acquirers?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 375-390, September.
    6. Mikkelson, Wayne H. & Ruback, Richard S., 1985. "An empirical analysis of the interfirm equity investment process," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 523-553, December.
    7. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    8. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    9. Philip Bond & Alex Edmans & Itay Goldstein, 2012. "The Real Effects of Financial Markets," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 339-360, October.
    10. Khoroshilov, Yuri & Dodonova, Anna, 2007. "Takeover auctions with actively participating targets," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 293-311, May.
    11. Malcolm Baker & Xin Pan & Jeffrey Wurgler, 2009. "A Reference Point Theory of Mergers and Acquisitions," NBER Working Papers 15551, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Jarrell, Gregg A & Poulsen, Annette B, 1989. "Stock Trading before the Announcement of Tender Offers: Insider Trading or Market Anticipation?," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 225-248, Fall.
    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. Eckbo, B. Espen, 2009. "Bidding strategies and takeover premiums: A review," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 149-178, February.
    2. Arturo Bris, 2005. "Do Insider Trading Laws Work?," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 11(3), pages 267-312, June.
    3. David Ettinger, 2009. "Takeover Contests, Toeholds and Deterrence," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 111(1), pages 103-124, March.
    4. Weitzel, Utz & Kling, Gerhard, 2012. "Sold below value? Why some targets accept very low and even negative takeover premiums," MPRA Paper 42832, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Bris, Arturo, 2002. "Toeholds, takeover premium, and the probability of being acquired," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 227-253, July.
    6. Betton, Sandra & Eckbo, B. Espen & Thorburn, Karin S., 2009. "Merger negotiations and the toehold puzzle," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 158-178, February.
    7. Fich, Eliezer M. & Harford, Jarrad & Tran, Anh L., 2015. "Motivated monitors: The importance of institutional investors׳ portfolio weights," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 21-48.
    8. Brooks, Chris & Chen, Zhong & Zeng, Yeqin, 2018. "Institutional cross-ownership and corporate strategy: The case of mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 187-216.
    9. Aktas, Nihat & de Bodt, Eric & Roll, Richard, 2011. "Serial acquirer bidding: An empirical test of the learning hypothesis," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 18-32, February.
    10. Akhigbe, Aigbe & Martin, Anna D. & Whyte, Ann Marie, 2007. "Partial acquisitions, the acquisition probability hypothesis, and the abnormal returns to partial targets," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(10), pages 3080-3101, October.
    11. Loyola, Gino, 2012. "Optimal and efficient takeover contests with toeholds," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 203-216.
    12. Schwert, G. William, 1996. "Markup pricing in mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 153-192, June.
    13. Jeff Madura & Thanh Ngo & Jurica Susnjara, 2014. "Information leakages and the costs of merging in Europe," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(8), pages 515-532, April.
    14. Barbopoulos, Leonidas G. & Adra, Samer & Saunders, Anthony, 2020. "Macroeconomic news and acquirer returns in M&As: The impact of investor alertness," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    15. Dimopoulos, Theodosios & Sacchetto, Stefano, 2014. "Preemptive bidding, target resistance, and takeover premiums," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(3), pages 444-470.
    16. Goldman, Eitan & Qian, Jun, 2005. "Optimal toeholds in takeover contests," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 321-346, August.
    17. Schneck, Colin & Bessler, Wolfgang & Zimmermann, Jan, 2014. "Bidder Contests in International Mergers and Acquisitions: The Impact of Toeholds, Preemptive Bidding, and Termination Fees," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100493, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Timothy A. Kruse & Kazunori Suzuki, 2016. "The impact of changes in Japanese tender offer regulations on bidder behavior and shareholder gains," Working Papers halshs-01643926, HAL.
    19. Loyola, Gino, 2008. "Optimal takeover contests with toeholds," UC3M Working papers. Economics we083217, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    20. Povel, Paul & Sertsios, Giorgo, 2014. "Getting to know each other: The role of toeholds in acquisitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 201-224.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Merger negotiations; stock market feedback;

    JEL classification:

    • G00 - Financial Economics - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hhs:nhhfms:2011_008. 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: Stein Fossen (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dfnhhno.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.