In this paper the effect of failed mergers on the profitability of the bidder and the target is investigated. It is demonstrated that when firms produce differentiated products in Bertrand competition, the post-rejection expected profitability of both firms is adversely affected by the...

In this paper we report the results of an empirical investigation based on a sample of 105 failed merger bids that occurred in the UK in the 1980's. We find that target firms report large, significant, positive gains after the bid while bidder firms report large, significant, negative gains. We...