Tag Archives: M&A

Antitrust Risk and Voluntary M&A Disclosure 

By | May 4, 2023

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 »

Who’s Afraid Of Antitrust? As Of Late, (Minority) Private Equity Investors 

By | January 11, 2023

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 »

Are Blockchain and Cryptocurrency M&As Harder to Close?

By | December 29, 2022

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 »

The Role of Venture Capital Firms in Startup Mergers and Acquisitions 

By | November 3, 2022

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 »

Democracy as a fundamental determinant of cross-border merger activity

By | October 6, 2022

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 »

Acquirer Mispricing and Payment Choices 

By | July 22, 2022

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 »

M&A Role in the VC Ecosystem: A View on Possible Antitrust Implications

By | July 2, 2021

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 »