Mergers and Acquisitions in Practice

2Motives for European Mergers and Acquisitions

Analysis of pre-merger press announcements and post-merger interviews

Agyenim Boateng, George Lordofos, and Keith W. Glaister

The motivation for mergers and acquisitions (M&As) has been a topic of immense interest to academics and practitioners over the past two decades. This interest stems from the various empirical findings which suggest that more than two-thirds of all M&A deals are financial failures when measured in terms of their ability to deliver profitability (Ravenscraft and Scherer, 1987; Tetenbaum, 1999; Hudson and Barnfield, 2001). In a more board context, prior studies suggest that the ability of M&As to create value for acquiring shareholders has been mixed. One stream of research ...