Cross-Border Takeovers: Western Europe Evidence

Abstract

The second half of the 20th century saw a number of events that paved the way to a new Europe. The fall of Berlin Wall paved the way for German reunification. The European Union was formally established when the Maastricht Treaty came into force on 1 November 1993 and Euro was duly launched in 1999. Europe has become the world’s biggest economic organization and plays an important role in global economic activities. We attribute most of Europe’s economic development to active participation in takeover transactions over the past few years, especially the cross-border activities in Western Europe. Thus, we have great interest in the cross-border merger and acquisition activities in Western Europe region, and in this paper, we want to do research about the wealth effects and semi-strong efficient market hypothesis of cross-border takeovers using samples of cross-border acquisition by Western Europe firms during the period 2000–2007. Finally, we find strong evidence that cross-border acquisitions are wealth-creating corporate activities and inconsistent with the semi-strong efficient market hypothesis. Further, we show that the growth in shareholder wealth is strongly affected by different characteristics of takeovers. An acquirer’s abnormal returns are positively correlated with bidding firm’s leverage, form of payment, and negatively correlated with acquirer firm’s size. Moreover, when French acquirers are involved, abnormal returns tend to be higher.