Antitrust laws in the U.S. prohibit firms from engaging in anticompetitive mergers and acquisitions (M&As) that may harm consumer welfare. While the merger control procedure requires firms to notify the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of prospective M&As, many deals are exempt from such a requirement. Consequently, firms voluntarily disclosing… Read More »
The antitrust world is changing. US agencies’ eyes are turning to finance, with the newest enforcement target being private equity (“PE”). Repeated public statements and speeches of US antitrust officials under the Biden administration clearly signal this policy shift. This is no surprise for Europe. The European Commission, confirmed by the Courts, has also recently… Read More »
Blockchain has been one of the fastest-growing technologies in the last decade. While some of this impressive growth has been organic, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have aided substantially, particularly in the last several years. The recent cryptocurrency report of PricewaterhouseCoopers emphasizes the extent of this contribution by documenting that “(t)he total value of crypto M&A… Read More »
Disagreement about firm value between potential buyers and sellers is particularly prevalent in private startups’ mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Startups are generally uncertain about their future performance and lack a robust financial track record. In M&A transactions, sellers often have more and better information (e.g., detailed information about the startup’s products and product markets) to… Read More »
Does democracy shape international merger activity? The short answer is yes, because democratic institutions are conducive to higher-quality corporate governance. In a new paper, we examine 104,425 cross-border transactions in 58 countries from the mid-1980s and find merger flows involve acquirers from more democratic countries than their targets. This result is primarily driven by a… Read More »
Are bidders in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) able to exploit their overvaluation by using overpriced shares as acquisition currency? The question has been debated within the financial economics literature since Shleifer and Vishny (2003) and Rhodes-Kropf and Viswanathan (2004) put forth theories suggesting that misvaluation drives the payment method in M&A deals. These seminal papers… Read More »
Several proposals in the House and Senate are aimed at substantially curbing M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) activity as part of changes focused on antitrust. In a recent study, titled “Mergers, Antitrust, and the Interplay of Entrepreneurial Activity and the Investments That Fund it”, we shed light on the possible implications to startup-driven innovation, in general,… Read More »
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