Long Term Operating Performance of Acquiring Firms in Emerging Markets : The Corporate Governance Issues

This paper determines the effect of ownership structure, governance mechanisms, and legal systems on long term operating performance of acquiring firms in emerging countries. The current work investigates the performance of sixty-nine merger and acquisition deals in emerging market countries. The major finding is that the acquiring firms with controlling shareholders (especially holding ownership between 25%-30%) improve post acquisition operating performance over three years after transaction. Board composition indexes for acquiring firms in emerging countries are more influential to post acquisition performance than those of CEO position and block-holders. Value creating deals associate with higher quality accounting standards and superior investor protection of emerging market countries. Too strong legal enforcement seemingly leads to greater value destruction, and legal origin has a varying influence on corporate performance. However, significant superior investment performance does not exist in acquiring firms from emerging countries classified as English legal origin but in those classified as German legal origin