← Search

Journal of Corporate Finance Vol. 43 2017

The role of corporate political strategies in M&As

Ettore Croci1; Christos Pantzalis2; Jung Chul Park2; Dimitris Petmezas3

1 Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore · 2 University of South Florida · 3 University of Surrey

open access

Abstract

In line with the view that politics can complicate M&A deals, we find that firms contributing to political action committees or involved in lobbying are less likely to be acquired and their takeover process is lengthier. As we empirically show, this can be explained by the fact that politicians have motives to interfere with the takeover process due to career concerns, in terms of getting re-elected and raising funds for future campaigns. We also document that politically connected target firms command higher takeover premiums from bidders lacking political expertise, consistent with the notion that the market regards target firms' connections, not easily replicable by bidders, as means to enhance growth opportunities of the merged firm.

DOI
10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2017.01.009
Volume
43
Pages
260-287
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

Cite