This paper examines changes in acquirer and target companies' Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads as a proxy for default risk around official mergers and acquisitions (M&A) announce-ments. Related literature extensively documents wealth effects triggered by M&A from the shareholders' perspective,...

This paper examines changes in Credit Default Swap (CDS) spreads as a proxy for default risk after M&A announcement for the companies involved. Existing literature extensively documents wealth effects triggered by M&A announcements from the shareholders' perspective, but there is limited...

This paper studies the returns of non public firms acquisitions. Like the American studies do, we show the existence of a “non public firms acquisition effect” for the European multi-acquirer firms: abnormal returns are much higher for non-public firms (subsidiaries or private held firms)...

In this study we use a sample of 332 European mid-market buy-out transactions initiated by private equity firms over the period 1990 to 2011. The focus of this research is to identify and quantify the value creation drivers in buy-out transactions. For that purpose we use a novel methodology for...

In the 1990s, European merger regulation (EMR) was biased against foreign acquirers, especially if the deal harmed domestic rivals (i.e., protectionism). In 2002, the Court of First Instance overturned three prohibitions by the European Commission (EC) and criticized its economic analysis. These...

Although bank mergers have been a topic of ongoing research in the USA, particularly in view of reforms instituted by the Riegle-Neal Interstate Banking and Branching Efficiency Act of 1994, the evidence on shareholder wealth effects in European bank mergers is thin. A key question is whether...

This article revisits the protectionism hypothesis related to the European merger regulation (EMR). In the 1990s, EMR was biased against foreign acquirers, especially if the deal harmed domestic rivals (i.e., protectionism). At the end of the 20th century and at the beginning of the 21st, the...

It is commonly perceived that firms do not want to be outsiders to a merger between competitor firms. We instead argue that it is beneficial to be a non-merging rival firm to a large horizontal merger. Using a sample of mergers with expert-identification of relevant rivals and the event-study...

The study examines the value creation of Merger and Acquisition (M&A) deals in European Banking from 1990-2004. This is performed, first, by examining the stock price reaction of banks to the announcement of M&A deals and, second, by analysing the determinants of this reaction. The findings...