Determinants of stock market reaction to cross-border acquisitions: evidence from emerging economies

PurposeThe global economy has witnessed an exponential increase in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) by emerging market companies (EMCs), demanding a relook at their internationalization strategy. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the announcement of CBAs by EMCs creates value for the equity-holders of acquiring firms and identify factors affecting the valuation of acquiring companies.Design/methodology/approachThe paper investigates the announcement impact of CBAs of CNX Nifty 500 Indian and SSE 380 Chinese companies. The event study analysis of 553 Indian and 125 Chinese acquisitions supports the contention that CBAs are indeed a strategic choice of EMCs for value creation.FindingsCBAs generate positive and statistically significant abnormal returns for shareholders of both Indian and Chinese acquirers. The markets, however, differ in terms of their motivations; country-level factors have been observed to exert significant influence on the returns of Indian acquirers. Indian companies experience larger value creation on acquiring firms established in developed, institutionally closer and/or economically distant markets. The findings support the asset-seeking motive of Indian companies.Originality/valueThe research work contributes to the evolving stream of CBAs literature with a focus on the globalization strategies of EMCs. The present study is a modest attempt to lay the foundation for a new theoretical framework (asset-seeking perspective) of overseas acquisitions from emerging economies. The existing studies on emerging economies have emphasized, in isolation, either Indian CBAs or international acquisitions by Chinese firms. Being so, the study is unique and original in the sense that it is a comparative study of India and China.

Acquiring firms' earnings management in stock-for-stock mergers within Korean business groups

PurposeThis study examines acquirers' earnings management in intragroup mergers to investigate whether stock-for-stock mergers between affiliated firms within the same family-controlled business group facilitate the controlling shareholder's rent seeking. Specifically, it investigates the acquiring firm's incentive to inflate premerger-announcement earnings in intragroup mergers given the controlling shareholder's relative equity holdings in the target and acquiring firms. The authors also examine how creditor monitoring affects premerger-announcement earnings in intragroup mergers compared to mergers between independent firms.Design/methodology/approachUsing univariate analysis, panel regression based on accruals and cross-sectional regression based on discretionary accruals, the authors compare earnings management in mergers between affiliated firms with that in mergers between independent firms in the context of Korean business groups. The authors also compare the effects of creditors on earnings management in both cases.FindingsAcquirers' premerger-announcement positive abnormal accruals are less evident in mergers between affiliated firms than in mergers between independent firms. These accruals decrease with high financial leverage only in the latter case, suggesting that creditor monitoring mitigates earnings management only in independent firm mergers.Originality/valueThe authors examine intragroup mergers, unlike previous studies, which focus on unaffiliated firm mergers. They also contribute to the literature on stock-for-stock mergers, showing that lender monitoring can mitigate the acquiring firm's premerger earnings management in unaffiliated firm mergers but not in intragroup mergers. These findings suggest that stock-for-stock mergers between affiliated firms may facilitate the controlling shareholders' rent seeking, which has policy implications for emerging markets with large family-controlled business groups.

Linking ownership acquired in Chinese firms to post-acquisition innovation performance: role of institutional distance

Purpose The primary purpose of this study is to explore the impact of acquired ownership in Chinese target firm on the innovation performance of developed economies (DE) acquiring firms. Furthermore, the study aims to empirically investigate the moderating influence of institutional distance between two parties’ home countries. Design/methodology/approach For the empirical investigation of the hypotheses, the authors identified cross-border technological acquisitions from the Securities Data Company between 1995 and 2015. A hierarchical negative binomial regression technique was used to analyze 177 technological acquisitions completed by DE acquiring firms in China. Findings Analysis of technological acquisition deals confirmed that acquired ownership undertaken in the Chinese target firms increases the DE acquiring firms’ post-acquisition innovation performance. The authors found that DE acquiring firms underperform in innovation in institutionally distant host countries. Originality/value This study contributes to the international business literature by explaining the importance of acquired ownership undertaken in the Chinese target firms for the DE acquiring firm’s innovation performance. Second, institutional theory defines how institutional uncertainty in terms of distance modifies the positive impact of acquired ownership on acquiring firm’s innovation performance.

The influence of subject heterogeneity and absorptive capacity of acquirer on innovation performance in technology-driven M&As

This study uses a sample of technological mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of A-share listed companies in the five major high-tech industries from 2012 to 2016, and conducts factor analysis to measure the heterogeneity of these enterprises in terms of financial slack resources, equity resources, and governance structure. On this basis, multivariate regression analysis is utilized to explore the influence of the acquiring firms' heterogeneity on their innovation performance, and the adjustment action of absorptive capacity between heterogeneity and innovation performance. The research results show that the slack financial resources and highly centralized equity structure of enterprises are not conducive to enterprises improving their innovation performance following a technological M&A, while the impact of governance structure on innovation performance following an M&A is similarly not significant. The empirical evidence provided offer insights and a decision reference for technological M&As of high-tech enterprises.

Risk and the Market’s Reaction to M&A Announcements

We estimate how an acquiring firm’s risk changes depending on whether the market initially judges the acquisition to be neutral, strongly negative, or strongly positive for the shareholders of the acquiring firm. We found that for an average neutral acquisition, the annualized standard deviation of an acquiring firm’s total return declines by 5%. In contrast, acquisitions judged negatively by the market result in a 5% increase in total risk, while acquisitions judged positively by the market feature a 30-basis-point increase in total risk. We found the median acquisition to be value creating, not value destructive. Value destruction tends to be concentrated among large firms and to be associated with extreme negative outliers. Acquiring firms with longholder CEOs are more prone to undertake acquisitions and more prone to take on risk, but are less prone to engage in value-destructive acquisitions than acquiring firms with non-longholder CEOs. In this respect, acquiring firms with non-longholder CEOs are more apt to undertake risky bad acquisitions, especially when their prior returns lie above the industry average. In addition, acquiring firms with non-longholder CEOs are less prone to take on good acquisitions that are high in risk. As a general matter, firms with longholder CEOs are less risk sensitive to changes in prior returns than firms with non-longholder CEOs.