This study provides the first large-sample empirical analysis on the characteristics, determinants, and returns from appraisal petitions during 2000-2014. We find that appraisal petitions increase from 2-3% of the eligible M&A deals in the early 2000s to around 25% of such deals in the most...

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) are simply enterprises that raise money from the public with the intention of purchasing an existing business and become publicly-traded in the securities markets. If the SPAC is successful in raising money and the acquisition takes place, the target...

This paper investigates the impact of the target chief executive officer’s (CEO) postmerger position on the purchase premium and target shareholders’ abnormal returns around the announcement of the deal in a sample of bank mergers during the period 1990–2004. We find evidence that the...

We examine the conflict of interest that an investment bank faces when advising both the target and acquirer in a merger or acquisition (M&A) by investigating how common advisors affect deal outcomes. We compare M&As with common advisors to deals in which targets and acquirers use different...

Acquisition announcements generate predictable movements in the price of the acquirer's stock. For example, post-announcement returns are typically negative for high Tobin's q acquirers, stock transactions, and foreign targets, but positive for private equity-backed private targets....

This paper examines the determinants of merging firms' choice of a common or separate M&A advisor, and the consequences of this choice on several deal outcomes. We analyze a large sample of acquisitions and account for the endogenous choice of common or separate advisors. We find that common...

This paper considers whether the concern that implementation of Directive 2004/25 (Takeover Directive) by the Companies Act 2006 will lead to a culture of litigation that would be detrimental to takeovers is justified, with reference to: (1) the common law approach restricting tactical...

We present a model in which mutual gains from trade motivate the use of termination provisions in merger contracts. The inclusion of a termination provision in the contract permits Pareto efficient merger contracts and results in strictly higher payoffs for both bidder and target compared to...

Manuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: This paper empirically examines whether there is pre-announcement movement of an acquirer's share price and trading volume prior to the announcement of acquisitions in ways consistent with insider trading. Prior papers focus on insider trading...