Acquisitions by emerging market firms of targets located in developed markets have increased drastically over the recent years. We use this setting to test Coffee's (1999) bonding hypothesis in a cross-border M&A context by examining whether acquirers adopt the corporate governance practices prevalent in the target's country. Using firm-level data spanning 2001–2010, we find that (i) ownership and board characteristics of Indian firms change significantly after acquiring developed market targets, (ii) the change in firm governance is more pronounced when the target countries have better investor protection and (iii) acquirers that exhibit changes in firm governance are associated with higher valuation after these transactions. These findings suggest that emerging market firms bond to higher corporate governance standards of the developed markets through cross-border acquisitions.