Corporate Acquisitions, Diversification, and the Firm’s Lifecycle
Charles A. Dice Center Working Paper No. 2011-18
46 Pages Posted: 23 Sep 2011 Last revised: 5 Sep 2013
There are 2 versions of this paper
Corporate Acquisitions, Diversification, and the Firm’s Lifecycle
Corporate Acquisitions, Diversification, and the Firm's Lifecycle
Date Written: September 3, 2013
Abstract
Theories of corporate finance predict that young firms make acquisitions to exploit growth opportunities, while mature firms do so because they lack growth opportunities. Further, mature firms are more likely to make wealth-destroying diversifying acquisitions because of agency problems. Contrary to these theories, we find that, while across IPO cohorts young and mature firms acquire more than middle-aged firms, young and mature firms acquire for similar reasons. Firms with better growth opportunities and performance are more likely to make acquisitions irrespective of their lifecycle stage. Moreover, both young and mature firms have similar propensities to make diversifying acquisitions. The market’s reaction to acquisition announcements enables us to reject the hypothesis that managers of mature firms are more likely to make value-destroying acquisitions than managers of young firms.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?
Recommended Papers
-
New Evidence and Perspectives on Mergers
By Gregor Andrade, Mark L. Mitchell, ...
-
Do Managerial Objectives Drive Bad Acquisitions?
By Randall Morck, Andrei Shleifer, ...
-
Stock Market Driven Acquisitions
By Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny
-
Stock Market Driven Acquisitions
By Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny
-
Poison or Placebo? Evidence on the Deterrent and Wealth Effects of Modern Antitakeover Measures
By Robert Comment and G. William Schwert
-
Does Corporate Performance Improve after Mergers?
By Paul M. Healy, Krishna Palepu, ...
-
Managerial Performance, Tobin's Q, and the Gains from Successful Tender Offers
By Larry H.p. Lang, Ralph A. Walkling, ...