This study investigates how the adoption of say-on-pay (SoP) regulation impacts the propensity and profitability of merger and acquisitions (M&A) activities with a sample of S&P 1500 firms (2005 – 2016). We examine both (a) macro-economic effect induced by the adoption of S&P regulation in 2011, impacting all firms across the board, and (b) firm-level effect due to variation in SoP voting approval percentage in different firms. We propose and examine two relevant hypotheses: (i) ‘SoP governance’ hypothesis – to explain the impact of SoP rule adoption, and (ii) ‘reliable CEO’ hypothesis – to explain the impact of SoP voting approval percentage. ‘SoP governance’ hypothesis predicts that in the post-SoP period, CEOs will be more cautious in pursuing M&A deals – which have a high risk of failure. This should lead to a lower probability of acquisition and better acquisition performance. On the other hand, ‘reliable CEO’ hypothesis proposes that CEOs with higher SoP voting approval percentage, enjoy more shareholder confidence and are encouraged to take risky ventures to increase shareholders wealth. This should lead to a higher probability of acquisition, with better acquisition performance. Our results find partial support for ‘SoP governance’ hypothesis – that SoP rule adoption is associated with a lower probability of acquisition but does not have any significant association with acquisition performance. While examining the effect of SoP voting approval percentage, we further find support for ‘reliable CEO’ hypothesis. Our results show that SoP voting approval percentage has a significant and positive association with acquisition probability and acquisition performance. Finally, we find that SoP voting results do not have any significant moderating effect on the relationship between (i) CEO incentive pay and M&A decisions, and (ii) CEO pay slice and M&A decisions.

As to a private enterprise, the leaving of outstanding staff is undoubtedly the losses of a kind of intangible assets to the company. For a company which has encountered the merged and acquisition¡]M¡®A¡^, a reorganization of the company is definitely needed . How to avoid the leaving of outstanding staffs and how to keep them? This question has turned into an major concern for the been-merged company. In Chinese society, the interpersonal relation is crucial in one¡¦s life , therefore, it has become unavoidable to concern about the impact of some staff¡¦s leaving. This research probes into the issue that how the employees in the been-merged company been influenced when making a decision to leave or stay in the company concerning the personal relationship in Chinese society. Find in the result of the research, the factors which account for the staying or leaving of the merged company staffs could be concluded as the following four points: 1¡BWhen after enterprise is merged, a staff could have the idea of keep staying contributed to a sense of fellowship among co-workers and vice versa. 2¡BWhen after enterprise is merged, in the bad contact relationship among the colleagues, a person among them could have the idea of keep staying because of the leaving of other colleagues in the office and vice versa. 3¡BWhen after enterprise is merged, in the good fellowship among the colleagues, a person among them could have the idea of leaving owing to not be accompanied by other remaining friends in the office and vice versa. 4¡BWhen after enterprise is merged, in the bad relationship among the colleagues, a person among them could have the idea of leaving owing to the staying of other colleagues in the office and vice versa.

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The effect of government intervention on business is a longstanding topic in political economy. One of the interesting cases is in recent China, where “socialism with Chinese characteristics” is associated with three decades of rapid economic growth. However, many doubt the sustainability of the “dual-track” approach applied in China, which tries to combine “market track” and “planned track” and achieve national goals without sacrificing firm-specific efficiency. This thesis investigates how the “market economy model dominated by political capital” works in Chinese OMAs. We look at Chinese overseas M&As in the period of 1994-2009. It is a good example because 80% of Chinese overseas M&A took place after China’s “Go Global” policy, and approximately half of the executors are state-owned enterprises. We test whether China’s Go Global policy affected shareholders’ wealth while pursuing government’s long-term goals of strategic resource-seeking and industry restructuring. The results show that Chinese OMAs achieved significantly positive performance in the short-run. However, performance decreased and became statistically insignificant over a longer three-year horizon. We find no evidence in the short-run responses of markets that the Go Global policy sacrificed shareholder wealth. However, we find OMAs by state-owned enterprises significantly underperformed private enterprises in the three years following completion of the deal. And there is evidence OMA performance varied across different sectors in the before and after policy periods. We also develop a generalized event study approach that pools multi-listings in event samples and “weights” individual listings by the new information they provide. We think this approach can be applied to other empirical studies in international/emerging markets settings.

Företagskoncentrationer har blivit en vanlig företeelse i europeiskt näringsliv och utgör en naturlig del av många företags affärsverksamhet. Vad som tidigare har betraktats som en åtgärd främst reserverad för stora industrikoncerner med resurser och erfarenhet har idag blivit ett viktigt strategiskt verktyg för företag att uppnå sina mål. Användandet av företagsöverlåtelser existerar idag på en global nivå där företag ser bortom nationsgränserna för att leta efter passande köpeobjekt.   En företagskoncentration innebär en strukturförändring på marknaden och en koncentration av marknadsmakt. Det företag som ges möjlighet att utnyttja den koncentrerade makten kan agera på ett sätt som snedvrider konkurrensen på marknaden och orsakar skada för konsumenter. Företagskoncentrationer av en viss storlek måste därför anmälas till och godkännas av konkurrensmyndigheter innan de får genomföras. Om företagskoncentrationen genomförs inom Europeiska Unionen (EU) och har gemenskapsdimension måste anmälan göras till EU-kommissionen (kommissionen) som har att pröva koncentrationens förenlighet med den gemensamma marknaden.   Tiden fram till dess att kommissionen har lämnat sitt beslut är parterna i en företagskoncentration förbjudna att vidta åtgärder som kan leda till att köparen erhåller sådan kontroll som ger möjlighet att utöva ett avgörande inflytande på målbolaget. Förbudet som återfinns i artikel 7.1 i koncentrationsförordningen (MR) innebär att parterna är förbjudna att ”tjuvstarta” och genomföra förvärvet innan de har erhållit ett godkännande från kommissionen. Härutöver är företagen att betrakta som självständiga konkurrenter och är därmed förbjudna enligt artikel 101.1 i fördraget om Europeiska Unionens funktionssätt (FEUF) att bedriva konkurrensbegränsande samarbete fram till dess att koncentrationen är lagligen genomförd. Dessa två förbud kan skapa osäkerhet bland parter som i väntan på kommissionens beslut är i behov av att vidta åtgärder för att möjliggöra ett framgångsrikt förvärv.   Kommissionen har på senare år visat ett ökat intresse för företag som misstänks genomföra sina förvärv i strid med artikel 7.1 MR och har vidtagit hårda åtgärder i de fall överträdelser har ansetts föreligga. Det råder emellertid fortfarande stor osäkerhet kring reglerna och vilka typer av åtgärder företag får vidta i väntan på kommissionens beslut. Utvecklingen har skett först på senare år och de fall som har kommit upp till prövning har ur ett juridiskt perspektiv inte väckt särskilt många frågor. Den specifika situationen där parterna, efter att anmälan har inkommit till kommissionen, vidtar åtgärder som konstituerar ett olagligt genomförande av koncentrationen har ännu inte prövats. Situationen inom EU kan ställas mot rättsläget i USA där motsvarande regelverk rörande s.k. ”gun jumping” har behandlats ingående av både domstolar, konkurrensmyndigheter och akademiker.   Denna uppsats kommer att utreda vilket handlingsutrymme parter till en företagskoncentration med gemenskapsdimension besitter fram till dess att kommissionen har lämnat beslut om koncentrationens förenlighet med den gemensamma marknaden.  Forskning visar att företag som förblir passiva och inaktiva under transaktionsprocessen riskerar att misslyckas med sina förvärv. Det är därför viktigt att utreda under vilka förutsättningar parter kan vidta åtgärder i väntan på kommissionens beslut utan att handla i strid med artikel 7.1 MR och artikel 101.

Over the last twenty years, the worldwide number of public mergers and acquisitions has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 3.3%. In each transaction, acquirers and valuing parties including corporations, investment banks, and buyout funds value target firms using a variety of methodologies. This paper provides evidence in favor of trailing twelve months percent revenue growth as a multiple for valuation. Using the last twenty years of public mergers and acquisitions available on S&P’s Capital IQ, this paper finds that revenue growth is a consistently significant predictor of a target firm’s purchase multiple, measured as its enterprise value divided by revenue. Further, this paper finds no evidence that trailing twelve months percent revenue growth is more significant during economic bubbles, and that the effect is largely mitigated within the technology sector.

Most mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are focus on the activities of Law, Finance, and Business. But many of top management who experienced M&A had admitted that human resources management is a critical point to success at M&A. As the development of concept of Human Capital, the function of Human Resources Department had been upgraded from ¡§Administration¡¨ to ¡§Strategy¡¨ in recent years. Perform as a business advisor/partner or strategic partner via providing more pro-active services, including activities of analysis of human capital, recruitment, training and development, compensation, performance management, change management, and so on. In order to operate business smoothly, when an international corporation enters to a new environment, it¡¦s necessary for this corporation to use well the local professionals and managers. After completion of M&A, then implement business strategies from headquarters. To investigate human resources strategies in 5 local companies merged by international financial groups, we could clearly to see that how those corporations conducted communication, employee retention, benefits, and relevant human resources strategies in M&A. The human resources activities in the organization could be conducted well only if there are proper human resources strategies. The competitiveness of a corporation will be reduced if there are no human resources strategies or to implement business strategies without considering factors of human resources. Human resources strategies play an important role in M&A integration from the study of these 5 companies, and they do effect future development of the organization after M&A.

The purpose of M&A usually directs to the exploration of business scale and the decrease of operation cost. The post-merge integration not only emphasizes on the integration of business unit to increase the profit, but also on the centralization of supporting lines regarding similar function, in order to decrease the duplicated cost of workforce. Most of the research papers focus on the performance of M&A or the integration manners of business unit, however, few of the research points out how the supporting lines integrate with each other. Thus, this report intends to figure out the key points of the centralization of supporting lines thorough the integration of human resource division. The practice of the case study reveals that the success of the integration relies on the determination of senior management, which helps to facilitate the execution part. Meanwhile, the similarity of the operation process within the subsidiaries also contributes to the success of the integration. However, the failure of the integration results from the characteristics of the different industries and the resistance of the subsidiaries¡¦ HR managers rather than the issues concerned by the senior management or the project execution.

To acquire, or not to acquire? The debate rages on. Companies have been acquiring other companies for centuries, and still, both scholars and practitioners cannot agree on whether acquisitions create and destroy shareholder value. The contradictory results of research into the value creation or value destruction nature of acquisitions has not dampened the will of those corporate executives with a penchant for buying other firms. Globally, and albeit affected by the general well being of the economy, the value and quantities of acquisitions continues to show strong growth. It is largely accepted that large acquisitions are executed as strategic initiatives which should yield benefits in the medium to long‐term. Using event study methodology with a control portfolio model, this study aimed to evaluate the validity of this claim and ascertain if, at the 5% confidence interval, 14 large acquisitions by companies listed on the JSE achieved significant share price gains in the 378 trading days (18 months at an average of 21 trading days per month) after the acquisition. This study concluded that large acquisitions had statistically; no impact on the long term share price returns of JSE listed acquiring companies. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This study explores the extent to which brand features in the due diligence process preceding mergers and acquisitions. Current literature suggests that when brand elements are integrated efficiently, success levels of the merge improve. Brand is considered broadly with the focus on corporate branding and therefore incorporates elements of imagery, reputation, culture, employees and external stakeholders. Brand equity, which comprises the assets and liabilities of the brand is seen as a source of competitive advantage. As such brand is a critical element which could certainly be incorporated formally into the pre-deal due diligence process. The research questions are to: Investigate and explore to what extent the concept of brand is considered in M&A due diligence in the South African context. Evaluate and explain the differing roles that the selected corporate advisors put forward in the M&A market regarding brand in South Africa. Investigate how M&A practitioners are operating in terms of IFRS 3 legislation which requires transparency in disclosure of intangible assets following a merge. The findings reveal that corporate advisors generally do not incorporate brand elements in the due diligence process. Their focus remains predominantly financial in assessing the cash-flows implicit of the brand in their analysis.A typology of the services and roles of corporate advisors is developed in terms of their approach to M&A consulting. Reporting in terms of intangible assets required by IFRS 3 convention is investigated and the findings confirm that transparency of valuation is not adequately revealed. Recommendations to the stakeholders involved in M&A include the incorporation of a formal marketing due diligence process to improve disclosure levels, to gain a deeper insight into marketing drivers of cash-flow, to gain a better understanding of inherent marketing risks and to improve valuation practice. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted