Becoming an acquirer and becoming acquired

This paper considers mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Finland. We explain the likelihood that a firm acquires or is acquired by another firm. We try to find out whether the incidences of M&A are influenced by the firms' R&D activity, measured by the calculated R&D stock. We obtained a very robust result, which says that R&D stock increases the probability that a firm acquires in all industries. In the nonprocessing industries, R&D stock similarly increases the probability that a firm is acquired by another. In the processing industries, the firm's own R&D stock has, however, zero impact on the likelihood that another firm buys a firm concerned. We interpret these results indicating that M&A are used as instruments to transmit knowledge from one firm to another. In the nonprocessing industries, it is evident that knowledge capital cumulated in the target is the main motivation for the purchase. Then a buyer's own R&D—which also increases the probability of the trade—signals that a buyer is efficient in absorbing the purchased new technology. In the processing industries, the motive for acquisition is different. We discovered that in the processing industries, technology is rather transmitted from the buyer's firm than to the purchased firm. It looks like that, in these industries, the firms have decreased their unit costs by means of their R&D activity, and so through M&A, the appeared unit cost differences have been levelled.