Tender offers provide the advantage of substantially faster completion times than mergers. However, a tender offer signals to the target higher demand for its shares and raises its reservation price. In equilibrium, bidders trade-off speed and cost. Consistent with this theory, we show that...

We find that firms that treat their employees better are less likely to be acquired. The shareholders of employee-friendly targets also receive lower premiums and smaller share of the surplus created by the deal. We also show that bidders tend to improve their employee policy following the...

We find that the announcement gain to target shareholders from acquisitions is significantly lower if a private firm instead of a public firm makes the acquisition. Non-operating firms like private equity funds make the majority of private bidder acquisitions. On average, target shareholders...