IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tcd/tcduee/tep7.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Risk, Strategy, and Optimal Timing of M&A Activity

Author

Listed:
  • J Thijssen

    (Department of Economics, Trinity College)

Abstract

In this paper, the problem of mergers and acquisitions under pro¯t uncer- tainty is considered. A two ¯rm model is developed where M&A activity is modelled as an act of risk diversi¯cation. We study the case where only the larger ¯rm engages in M&A activity and the case where both ¯rms do. It is shown that takeovers can be optimal during both economic expansions and contractions. The option value of M&A activity is determined. We argue that there is a minimum level of positive synergies for M&A activity to be optimal, which is increasing in the level of diversi¯cation. Furthermore, it is shown that under M&A competition, this option value vanishes completely and that hostile takeovers are never optimal. An analysis of optimal portfolio selection by a risk averse investor shows ambiguous wealth results of M&A activity.

Suggested Citation

  • J Thijssen, 2005. "Risk, Strategy, and Optimal Timing of M&A Activity," Trinity Economics Papers tep7, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:tcd:tcduee:tep7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tcd.ie/Economics/TEP/2005_papers/TEP7.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Farrell, Joseph & Shapiro, Carl, 1990. "Horizontal Mergers: An Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 107-126, March.
    2. Stephen W. Salant & Sheldon Switzer & Robert J. Reynolds, 1983. "Losses From Horizontal Merger: The Effects of an Exogenous Change in Industry Structure on Cournot-Nash Equilibrium," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(2), pages 185-199.
    3. Morellec, Erwan & Zhdanov, Alexei, 2005. "The dynamics of mergers and acquisitions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 649-672, September.
    4. Avinash K. Dixit & Robert S. Pindyck, 1994. "Investment under Uncertainty," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 5474.
    5. repec:dau:papers:123456789/13604 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Hans FÃllmer & Peter Leukert, 1999. "Quantile hedging," Finance and Stochastics, Springer, vol. 3(3), pages 251-273.
    7. Nash, John, 1950. "The Bargaining Problem," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 18(2), pages 155-162, April.
    8. Alexander Schrader & Stephen Martin, 1998. "Vertical Market Participation," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 13(3), pages 321-331, June.
    9. Lambrecht, Bart M., 2004. "The timing and terms of mergers motivated by economies of scale," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 41-62, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Toxvaerd, Flavio, 2008. "Strategic merger waves: A theory of musical chairs," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 140(1), pages 1-26, May.
    2. Adesoji O. Adelaja & Ramyani Mukhopadhyay, 2022. "Time‐to‐completion for mergers and acquisitions in the food and agribusiness industry," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(3), pages 579-607, July.

    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. repec:tcd:wpaper:tep7 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Dirk Hackbarth & Jianjun Miao, "undated". "The Timing and Returns of Mergers and Acquisitions in Oligopolistic Industries," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series wp2008-022, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    3. Hackbarth, Dirk & Miao, Jianjun, 2012. "The dynamics of mergers and acquisitions in oligopolistic industries," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 585-609.
    4. Lukas, Elmar & Reuer, Jeffrey J. & Welling, Andreas, 2012. "Earnouts in mergers and acquisitions: A game-theoretic option pricing approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 223(1), pages 256-263.
    5. Kejriwal, Mohitosh & Perron, Pierre, 2008. "Data Dependent Rules For Selection Of The Number Of Leads And Lags In The Dynamic Ols Cointegrating Regression," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(5), pages 1425-1441, October.
    6. Lukas, Elmar & Welling, Andreas, 2012. "Negotiating M&As under uncertainty: The influence of managerial flexibility on the first-mover advantage," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 29-35.
    7. Pablo Moran, 2017. "Information Revelation in Merger Waves," The Review of Corporate Finance Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 6(2), pages 174-233.
    8. Tarsalewska, Monika, 2015. "The timing of mergers along the production chain, capital structure, and risk dynamics," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 51-64.
    9. Tarsalewska, Monika, 2018. "Buyouts under the threat of preemption," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 39-58.
    10. Bart Lambrecht & Stewart C. Myers, 2005. "A Theory of Takeovers and Disinvestment," NBER Working Papers 11082, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Chi Man Leung & Yue Kuen Kwok, 2018. "Real options signaling game models for dynamic acquisition under information asymmetry," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 41(1), pages 35-63, May.
    12. Mattoo, Aaditya, 1999. "Can no antitrust policy be better than some antitrust policy?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2191, The World Bank.
    13. Bart M. Lambrecht & Grzegorz Pawlina, 2010. "Corporate Finance and the (In)efficient Exercise of Real Options," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 14(3-4), pages 189-217, September.
    14. Weeds, Helen & Mason, Robin, 2010. "The Timing of Takeovers in Growing and Declining Markets," CEPR Discussion Papers 7678, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Wang, Xunxiao & Wu, Chongfeng & Xu, Weidong, 2015. "When to buy or sell in supply chains with the presence of mergers," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 137-145.
    16. Moez Souissi & Pierre Lasserre, 2007. "It Takes Two to Tango.. La fusion : exercice de deux options réelles," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 0(2), pages 51-65.
    17. Dimitrios Zormpas, 2017. "How vertical relationships and external funding affect investment efficiency and timing?," 2017 Papers pzo81, Job Market Papers.
    18. Nishide, Katsumasa & Tian, Yuan, 2011. "Compensation measures for alliance formation: A real options analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1-2), pages 219-228, January.
    19. Pereira, Paulo J. & Rodrigues, Artur, 2019. "Bargaining merger terms and the effect on the announcement returns," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 510-521.
    20. Chen, Jia & Gao, Ya-Chun & Li, Qiang & Zeng, Yong, 2020. "Cash holdings, M&A decision and risk premium," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 537(C).
    21. Graham, Jeffrey, 2011. "Strategic real options under asymmetric information," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 922-934, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F - International Economics

    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:tcd:tcduee:tep7. 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: Colette Angelov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detcdie.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.