A Theory of Mergers and Merger Waves

We consider a sequential merger game between Cournot firms with homogeneous product and quadratic cost. A large slope of the marginal cost function or a small slope of inverse market demand are both predicted to increase the incentive to merge. The profitability of any merger increases with the number of mergers having already taken place. Thus, mergers tend to occur in waves in industries that have experienced exogenous shocks affecting firms’ cost or demand. We also show some mergers that are not profitable for merged firms in the short-run may take place in the early stage of a wave.     

Mergers in the Electric Utility Industry in a Deregulatory Environment

We document that the merger announcement returns are positive and significant for targets of acquiring electric utility industry firms, but are not as algebraically large as target returns documented in non-regulated industry merger announcements. Additionally, electric utility acquirer firms earn significant negative announcement returns when acquiring an electric utility. We find announcement returns for acquirers vary significantly based upon the timing of the merger announcement, with mergers announced after the Energy Policy Act of 1992 generating negative returns for acquirers. We also find a significant difference in the percentage change in aggregate entity value around the announcement date for diversifying mergers as compared to non-diversifying mergers, with diversifying merger announcements resulting in a decrease in aggregate entity value.     

Mergers,multiperiod Cournot competition,and Coasian dynamics

Under the simplifying conditions of product homogeneity, linear demand, symmetric and constant marginal costs, the static Cournot–Nash equilibrium predicts that exogenous horizontal mergers generate losses for the participants if the participants represent less than 80% of the firms in the industry. I successfully challenge the applicability of this well-known merger paradox to markets for durable goods by introducing Coasian dynamics to the quantity competition, while maintaining all other simplifying conditions. I demonstrate that exogenous mergers with a relatively small number of insiders in industries with a relatively large initial number of firms can be profitable as long as the common discount factor is sufficiently high and the decision-making horizon is sufficiently long. Unlike previous research on mergers in durable-goods industries, the significance of the decision-making horizon is emphasized; mergers that are unprofitable in a short-horizon version of my model for all values of the discount factor can prove profitable in a long-horizon version provided that agents are sufficiently patient.     

Horizontal Mergers and Merger Waves in a Location Model

We consider sequential mergers in a spatial model with Cournot competition. This model is suitable for explaining the behaviour of some industries where several brands of the same product are delivered by plants. The automobile and oil product industries are examples. To discuss sequential mergers, we use the method of Nilssen and Sørgard (1998). We show that if the transportation cost per length is large relative to market size, a merger wave occurs. In addition, it might improve social surplus. On the other hand, if the transportation cost per length is relatively small, a merger wave does not occur even though firms would be better off with sequential mergers.
We also compare our model to that of Levy and Reitzes (1992) who consider horizontal mergers with spatial price competition. We show that in a merger of neighbouring firms the merged firm's profit decreases. This result is opposite to that of Levy and Reitzes (1992).
Finally, we consider how a regulator affects sequential mergers. When each merger occurs, the regulator assesses each merger. In this case, there is a possibility that the existence of the regulator deters welfare-improving sequential mergers.     

HORIZONTAL MERGERS IN A DIFFERENTIATED COURNOT OLIGOPOLY

Using a standard differentiated goods quantity competition setting, we show three facts about horizontal two‐firm mergers that are not true for a homogeneous goods Cournot market. First, merger of two firms is profitable for the merging firms provided that goods are sufficiently distant substitutes. Second, merging of two firms can lead to more two‐firm mergers. Third, an initially non‐profitable two‐firm merger can occur in anticipation of subsequent mergers. These facts imply that mergers are more likely to occur in differentiated goods markets than in homogeneous goods markets.     

Merger Waves and Firm Growth: Contemporary Historical Evidence

This article presents the outcomes of an evaluation of the impact of the series of mergers of the local exchange companies that have taken place between 1988 and 2001 on an important measure of performance of the firms undergoing the mergers. The analysis reveals that after firms have undertaken one merger they experience little or no growth after such mergers, but the impact of second mergers on firm growth have been negative. If an important motive in undertaking mergers has been to enhance firm growth, then the merger waves that have been approved and consummated have led to performance declines. The impacts of the merger wave on the growth of the telecommunications sector firms have been negative.     

Monopolization through endogenous vertical mergers

While endogenous merger analysis has been applied to horizontal mergers, the thrust of vertical merger analysis has been based on exogenous mergers. The goal of this paper is to analyze endogenous vertical mergers. I consider a market structure with a downstream monopolist and an oligopolistic upstream industry. The downstream monopolist chooses to buy a certain number of the upstream firms. Mergers are endogenous, in the sense that the bids made by the downstream firm must be accepted by each of the integrated upstream firms, and must not exceed the increase in the profits of the downstream firm. It is shown that the unique equilibrium is complete monopolization: the buyer buys all the firms in the upstream industry. This result is consistent with the result that vertical mergers are profitable. However, it is in contrast with horizontal endogenous mergers, where complete monopolization is generally not an equilibrium.     

Electricity market mergers with endogenous forward contracting

We analyze the effects of electricity market mergers in an environment where firms endogenously choose their level of forward contracts prior to competing in the wholesale market. We apply our model to Alberta’s wholesale electricity market. Firms have an incentive to reduce their forward contract coverage in the more concentrated post-merger equilibrium. We demonstrate that endogenous forward contracting magnifies the price increasing impacts of mergers, resulting in larger reductions in consumer surplus. Current market screening procedures used to analyze electricity mergers consider firms’ pre-existing forward commitments. We illustrate that ignoring the endogenous nature of firms’ forward commitments can yield biased conclusions regarding the impacts of market structure changes such as mergers. In particular, we show that the price effects of mergers can be largely underestimated when forward contract quantities are held at pre-merger levels. Whether the profits of the merged firm are greater with fixed or endogenous forward quantities is ambiguous.     

Evaluating Mergers in the Australian Petroleum Industry

We study the effects of mergers in the Australian petroleum industry during 1980–1994. The effect on the profitability of both the merging and non–merging firms is estimated. There is robust evidence that mergers have been associated with a decrease in profitability for all firms. Thus, the results are not consistent with the view that mergers have acted primarily to increase market power or that they have acted primarily to increase efficiency. There is some support for the more complicated view that mergers have both increased market power and decreased efficiency, with the latter effect dominating.     

The closed‐loop effect and the profitability of horizontal mergers

Abstract.  We study the profitability of horizontal mergers in a dynamic competition context with sticky prices. It is shown that, when firms use open‐loop strategies, a merger is profitable only if the share of the market that merges is significant enough. In the case where firms use closed‐loop strategies we provide a method to conduct analytically the study of the profitability of horizontal mergers. We first prove the existence of an equilibrium of the game when a subset of firms merges. When firms use feedback strategies, mergers are profitable even when the share of the market that merges is arbitrarily small. JEL Classification:D4, L13     

Australian Company Mergers 1960-1970*

This study recorded 340 international mergers and 1992 domestic mergers in Australia in the period mid 1959-December 1970. In the 1,460 mergers for which price information was available, the total merger value amounted to $2,283.3 million. The merger movement was most intensive in the later years of the period, with $1,034.8 million being paid for 429 firms during 1968-1970. This compares with some 1,157 mergers transacted at a total cost of $558.4 million recorded by Mr Bushnell [2] in the period 1947-to mid 1959.²³ While mergers took place in almost all industries, they were not uniformly distributed. More than two-thirds of foreign take-overs occurred in manufacturing, compared with less than one-half of domestic mergers in manufacturing. Foreign companies have purchased the largest or leading Australian firms in their respective industries. Moreover, United States take-overs were important in basic chemicals and flour mill and cereal products; on the other hand, United Kingdom take-overs were prominent in beverages and malt, other industrial machinery and fabricated metal products. Among the foreign acquiring companies, merger activity was more concentrated in United Kingdom-based companies than among United States-based companies. For the period as a whole, domestic take-overs outnumbered foreign take-overs by more than 5·5 to 1. In examining the limited evidence for foreign take-over activity in the period 1946-59,²⁴ it is apparent that foreign firms have accounted for a much higher share of merger activity during the nineteen-sixties. In addition, mergers overseas have brought together the Australian subsidiaries of the merging companies. Mr Bushnell [2] rated the tax structure including all its ramifications as probably the single most important cause for mergers.²⁵ While tax factors have continued to play an important role in merger activity, it appears that, during the sixties, a far more important reason for mergers in many industries has been the so-called proliferation effect of mergers. As some firms, especially the multinationals, took over leading local companies making for cost and competitive advantages, invariably the smaller remaining independent firms were compelled to resort to mergers for defensive reasons. The owners of many of these firms, fearing a war of attrition, took advantage of avoiding risks by capitalizing future profits in the form of tax-free capital gains, by selling out before a situation emerged where their bargaining power would have been seriously eroded. Most of these firms disappearing into mergers, did so with partners closely related to their existing operations. Approximately three-fourths of domestic and foreign take-overs were of the broad horizontal class.     

Mergers,cartels and leniency programs: The role of capital stocks

This paper examines the impact of mergers on collusion, depending on the endowment of capital assets among firms. We show that mergers render collusion easier to sustain when an asymmetric capital stock is combined with less-efficient insiders, due to more symmetric conditions and tighter incentive constraints. Moreover, the model allows us to determine an optimal threshold of asymmetry between insiders and outsiders such that mergers have pro-competitive effects; we compare this value with that which would generate perfect symmetry between firms after the merger.     

Multidivisional firms, internal competition, and the merger paradox

Abstract.  Traditional modelling of mergers has the merged firms (insiders) cooperate and maximize joint profits. This approach has several unappealing results in quantity‐setting games, for example, mergers typically are not profitable for insiders, but are profitable for non‐merging firms (outsiders). We take a different approach and allow for a parent company that can play each insider off one another. In quantity‐setting games, with our approach mergers are profitable for insiders, unprofitable for outsiders, socially beneficial, and involve (in a non‐monopolizing merger) a small number of firms. Finally, we find that the optimal strategy depends on whether firms compete in quantity or prices. JEL classification: L000     

On Mergers and Agglomeration

We formulate a model of mergers and acquisitions assuming a monopolistic competitive industry that exhibits agglomeration economies. We provide the conditions for the existence of a non‐trivial Nash equilibrium in the acquisition market at which the most productive firm acquires a range of less‐productive firms. Most importantly, we show that domestic merger and acquisition activities are international trade promotionary. We also show that such types of mergers and acquisition will improve the competitive position of foreign firms leading to an increase in their market share. In addition, domestic mergers and acquisitions will increase the number of imported varieties.     

The Effects of Trade Liberalization On Cost-Reducing Horizontal Mergers*

This paper analyzes the effects of tariff reductions on horizontal mergers in a Cournot oligopoly in a two-country world. It is shown that for mergers between two domestic firms and for cross-border mergers which supply both markets from a foreign plant, unilateral tariff reduction encourages mergers which concentrate market power at the expense of mergers which reduce cost, while bilateral tariff reductions have the opposite effect, encouraging mergers which significantly reduce cost. Cross-border mergers which continue to supply each market from a local plant are discouraged by both unilateral and bilateral tariff reduction.     

国外并购绩效评价方法研究综述

20世纪全球经历了5次企业并购浪潮,并购已经成为现代企业尤其是大型企业和高成长企业快速扩张和整合的重要手段之一.企业并购的之后的效果如何,如何来评价并购的绩效,国外学者从不同角度做了大量的研究,但数十年的研究至今没有一个统一的结论.本文总结了30多年以来国外学者有关企业并购绩效研究的重要文献,在此基础上将国外并购绩效的评价方法分为财务评价、股票评价和其他评价三类,并指出了并购绩效评价方法中存在的问题.     

Complementarities and spillovers in mergers: an empirical investigation using patent data

We investigate the merger behavior of firms in the plant biotechnology sector using firm-level patent data for public and private firms in the 1980s and 1990s. Conditional logit estimation is used to estimate the probability that the firms will match in mergers and spinoffs. We calculate several patent portfolio-based measures of complementarity and spillovers between firms, and find that both are important to defining a good match of acquirer and target. However, complementarities provide the more robust explanation. The mergers and spinoffs observed in plant biotechnology may have been designed to overcome the anti-commons problem of mutually blocking technology, an extreme form of complementarity. Our results highlight the need to integrate patent and competition policy.     

Cross-border mergers in a mixed oligopoly

This paper identifies the unique strategic issues of cross-border mergers in a mixed oligopoly showing that the presence of a welfare maximizing public firm increases the incentive for such mergers. The well-known merger paradox that two-firm mergers are rarely profitable is substantially relaxed in the cases of both linear and convex production costs. The ability to identify profitable two-firm mergers in this context takes on added importance as the recent cross-border merger wave often involved industries with public firms.     

Life Science Innovation and the Restructuring of the Pharmaceutical Industry: Merger, Acquisition and Strategic Alliance Behaviour of Large Firms

This article explores the transformative nature of the life sciences in the context of pharmaceutical mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances. Drawing on interviews with senior scientists and managers from large pharmaceutical firms, and secondary data on general industry trends, it identifies diverse company strategies for capturing and exploiting new technologies/knowledge and explores their implications for innovation. The article suggests that mergers, acquisitions and strategic alliances represent a cluster of related activities that provide various strategic options for managing innovation and productivity deficit. However, because the preferred balance between in-house R&D and externally sourced knowledge depends on a number of firm-specific factors, as well as challenges posed by the external operating environment, there is increasing variation between large companies in how these activities are exploited and strategically managed.     

The take-over market for privately held companies: the US experience

The volume of acquisitions involving privately held firms hasfar surpassed that of publicly traded firms in recent years;yet this segment of the take-over market remains largely unexplored.In analysing the unique features of private target take-overs,we compare the mergers and acquisitions markets for unquotedand quoted firms on several dimensions including methods ofpayment, offer premiums and bidder wealth effects. Our resultsshow that these mergers provide positive shareholder wealthbenefits for bidders and relatively high premiums for privatelyheld targets. Also, the market's reaction depends on whetherit perceives the price paid for the target as too high or toolow, a rational response given the sentiment at the time ofthe announcement.