THE IMPACT OF MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS ON THE ECONOMIC PERFORMANCES

This paper aims to measure the extent to which banking systems from Central and Eastern Europe have been characterized by banking consolidation through mergers and acquisitions and the extent to which this process led to the concentration of the banking activity. Also, we measure the impact of mergers and acquisitions on the economic performance of the targeted banks. The conclusions show that the banking system from Central and Eastern Europe was subject to numerous acquisitions from Western banks that chose to enter aggressively into these markets with high growth potential. The effect of the acquisitions on the economic indicators is not obvious in the first years because of the strategy aiming larger market shares.