Mergers & acquisitions (M&A) are most popular external growth strategies. While the number of M&A has been increasing during the past decades, on average, only the shareholders of target firms gain value during the acquisitions process, while acquirers do not receive abnormal positive returns....

Business exit has implications for a firm's corporate strategy. Two types of exit events are distinguished: those that involve strategic change and those that are status quo-preserving. This study investigates the impact of CEO turnover and succession on strategic versus status quo-preserving...

This study examines changes in block ownership for a large sample of listed and non-listed German firms. The frequency of block trading is similar to other countries, and the vast majority of block trades leads to changes in ultimate ownership (control transfers). Such changes are more likely...

This study investigates the determinants of changes in corporate ownership and firm failure, taking into account different types of sellers and buyers of control blocks. For a large panel of German corporations we find that firms are more likely to fail or to be sold when performance is poor,...

We analyze a large merger in the Dutch banking market during the financial crisis using disaggregated data. Based on a merger simulation model, we evaluate merger-induced changes in the interest rates for savings accounts. We find that the merging banks decreased interest rates by 3 to 5 percent...