Mergers and Acquisitions in Practice

3Motives for Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions

Perspective of UK firms

Mohammad F. Ahammad, Shlomo Y. Tarba, Keith W. Glaister, Ian P. L. Kwan, Riikka M. Sarala, and Luiz Montanheiro

Introduction

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (CBM&As) have become the dominant means of internationalisation, accounting for approximately 60 pre cent of all foreign direct investment inflows (Hopkins, 1999). Consistent with this, cross-border acquisitions now represent over 25 per cent of all global M&A transactions, a considerable rise from the 15 per cent of ten years ago (Schoenberg and Seow, 2005). According to Thomson Reuters, firms invested almost $3,500 billion in M&As in 2014 – a significant increase since 2008 (Forbes, 2015). Cross-border M&A ...