Implications of relative overvaluation in stock-swap acquisitions

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School of Business | Bachelor's thesis
Electronic archive copy is available locally at the Harald Herlin Learning Centre. The staff of Aalto University has access to the electronic bachelor's theses by logging into Aaltodoc with their personal Aalto user ID. Read more about the availability of the bachelor's theses.

Date

2018

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Mcode

Degree programme

Rahoitus

Language

en

Pages

26

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Abstract

Theory and evidence suggests that overvalued companies can employ their overvaluation by using their stock as a currency to buy less overvalued companies and this way create immediate value for their shareholders. Findings in this thesis demonstrate that in a sample of U.S. mergers between 1996 and 2017, overvaluation does not motivate stock-financed mergers on average. Further, this paper shows that overvaluation motivates mergers on subsamples of this period, as relative overvaluation exists at times when economic conditions are good and valuations high. Finally, I challenge the finding of previous literature, which implies that acquirers in stock-financed deals would not benefit in short-term. My data shows that even though overvalued stock-swap acquirers pay unjustifiable high premiums to their targets, these premiums are not too high to offset all the benefits created in short-term for acquirer shareholders.

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Thesis advisor

Sprickers, Theresa

Keywords

merger, acquisition, method of payment, stock misvaluation, bid-period returns

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