Using a panel of Chinese listed firms over the period 1998–2015, we examine the extent to which liquidity impacts firms' acquisition decisions, method of payment choice, and performance following mergers. We observe that cash-rich firms are more likely to attempt acquisitions, especially if they are subject to tunneling. Next, we find that bidders with higher growth opportunities are less likely to use cash payments in acquisitions. This effect is stronger for financially constrained bidders, who face greater opportunity costs of holding cash. Our last set of results highlights the under-performance of cash acquisitions in both the short and long term.

This paper investigates whether top-tier M&A investment bankers (financial advisors) create value for acquirers with different financial conditions in both the short and long term via analyzing 3420 US deals during 1990–2012. In this paper, deals are divided into three groups based on acquirer financial constraints – acquisitions by constrained, neutral and unconstrained firms. We find that the effects of top-tier bankers are dependent on acquirer financial conditions. Specifically, top-tier advisors improve performance for constrained acquirers rather than neutral, and unconstrained acquirers. Our results show that top-tier investment bankers improve constrained acquirers’ short- (5 days) and long-term (36 months) performance by 1.45% and 24.27% respectively, after controlling for firm, deal and market characteristics. For deals with investment banker involvement, constrained acquirers advised by top-tier advisors have the lowest deal completion rate, and pay the lowest bid premiums; while unconstrained acquirers that retain top-tier investment bankers have the highest deal completion rate, and pay relatively high bid premiums. Our findings imply that constrained acquirers tend to retain top-tier investment bankers to gain superior synergy, while unconstrained acquirers appear to retain top-tier investment bankers to ensure the deal completion.