Agency, Bid Resistance and the Market for Corporate Control

In this paper we investigate the effects of post-bid defence activity for a sample of takeover bids in the UK. We find that most of the defences investigated promote the interests of target managers by significantly lowering the probability of bid success. We also find that most of the defences promote the interests of shareholders by increasing wealth gains by an amount that varies between 9% and 14%. These results suggest that bid resistance is to the mutual benefit of the managers and shareholders of target firms. This conclusion is in line with recent developments in agency theory.