Magister Legum - LLM / This paper focuses on mergers and acquisitions as tools for business growth, how these have come into existence, their strengths, and mainly the reasons for their failure. Taking a closer look on how these have emerged in the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa. Amongst the various ways that companies are able to get business financing, mergers and acquisitions have emerged as one of the most popular strategies for business diversity and growth. Mergers and acquisitions are agreed upon by companies to achieve certain strategic and financial goals. This is usually achieved by the bringing together of two companies with often contrasting corporate personalities, cultures and value systems.¹ The field of mergers and acquisitions has grown greatly over the past half century. At one point, mergers and acquisitions was mainly a US phenomenon but during the 1990‘s their volume in Europe started rivaling that of the USA. By 2000's mergers and acquisitions had become commonly used corporate strategies for companies‘ worldwide.² Even though the number of mergers and acquisition seems to increase and decrease in waves, they have been studied frequently. A study revealed that in 2004 an acquisition was made every 18 minutes all year round. There was normally not a business day that would go by without the news of a merger or an acquisition in the media. The decision to merge, usually taken by the board and shareholders of a company is always preceded by extensive planning and implementation.³ Mergers and acquisitions are part of the continuing process of the growth of companies and as a result of the separation of ownership and management, it is management which will play the dominant part in the initiation of such mergers and acquisition and their motives could be primarily self-interest.⁴ It is expected that merging mostly results in the creation or formation of larger companies or units and if those large companies merge with others, even larger units will result therefrom. The result of that large unit can be a commercial or financial institution which is capable of exerting pressure on a country's economy.⁵ Despite their popularity, most mergers and acquisitions result in financial failures and may produce results that are undesirable for the stakeholders of the company. Some consequences that are usually detrimental to investors are share underperformance, which usually takes place months after the acquisition.⁶ Success of mergers mostly depends on how well the organisations are integrated. This paper will examine mergers and acquisitions in depth, its overview, the motivation of companies to undertake mergers and acquisitions and the reason for its failures. The paper will also examine the regulations and the success of mergers and acquisitions in the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa. Lastly, the last chapter will conclude with a finding of whether mergers and acquisitions can be said to be a strategy for business growth.

Mergers and acquisitions form the majority of FDI deals in the developed world, but remain relatively scarce as a mode of entry in the developing world. The purpose of this research was to investigate the macroeconomic profile of developing countries which attract greater M&A activity in the developing world. The extant literature served as a guide in assembling a list of predictor variables as proxies for macroeconomic factors identified as being drivers of M&A as an entry mode of choice. In order to isolate the significant macroeconomic factors influencing M&A as a mode of entry, two statistical analyses were employed, namely cluster analysis and principal component analysis. These methodologies enabled first a meaningful separation of the country data in order to overcome the effects of high variance and clustering identified in exploratory scatterplots and second allowed for the identification of regional and country effects in M&A activity. The study distinguished several variables relating to the market potential, institutional, infrastructural and sectoral structure of an economy as being significant in M&A activity at a regional level. At the country level of M&A attraction the significant findings were more specific. The presence of a democracy proxied by the variable voice and accountability, a decreased dependency on mining resources as a percentage of GDP and the sectoral make-up and level of diversification of a country were found to influence the attraction of M&A’s. The complex and broad nature of this paper has the intention of creating a platform from which several more specific studies on M&A attraction in developing economies may be launched. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The purpose of the study is to ascertain the meaning and ambit of section 12(2)(g) of the Competition Act 89 of 1998. The main question that the study will focus on is in which instances a firm can be said to control another firm by having the ability to materially influence the policy of that firm in a manner comparable to a person who, in the ordinary commercial practice, can exercise an element of control referred to in section 12. The study will look at: <ul> (a) the South African competition law and policy; (b) the Competition Act and its application; (c) merger definition and regulations; (d) the concept of control and definition of control; and (e) the scope of application of 12(2)(g) of the Competition Act.</ul> Copyright / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

The slow rate of development in some of the regions of Ghana, and in fact of the developing countries, is partly-due to the lack of adequate and efficient transportation services. The provision of such services is greatly hindered by the excessive competition between transportation modes and the inexpedient allocation of capital resources for transport development. The utilization of the Volta Lake for the purposes of transportation will probably constitute a source of competition to existing modes of transportation, particularly roads. In order to make possible the use of this economical means of transport, ways must be found to integrate lake transport with existing systems, since water transport cannot function efficiently as a separate system. It is hypothesized that an integrated system of road, rail and lake transport can be used as a means of achieving the economic, physical and social objectives for the balanced regional development of the Volta Basin. In order to evaluate the potential development of transport integration and the possibilities of utilizing integrated transport facilities as a tool for achieving regional development, the concepts of transport integration and transport coordination are defined and reviewed. It is demonstrated that transport integration is concerned with the employment of each mode of transportation in the economic circumstances best suited to its characteristics. The concept of the region and the process of regional planning and development are also reviewed. The regional unit appropriate to planning in the developing countries is the 'uniform region', which is described in terms of its similar problem characteristics. Regional planning and development have evolved as a means of solving these problems and of ordering the natural and human resources in order to ensure balanced growth. The Volta Basin regional planning unit is determined to be viable for the purposes of development; however, for this study, the region is extended to include the Tamale Area in the north and the Accra-Tema Area in the southeast, because of the tremendous flow of traffic between the two areas. In order to investigate how Volta Lake transport could be integrated with road and railway systems, the case study approach is used. The principles of integrated transport development utilized in the U.S.S.R., and in the Tennessee Valley Region and the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Area of the U.S.A. are reviewed. It is observed that an efficient transportation system is considered to be a means of achieving economic, physical and social development in these countries. The principles of transport integration in the U.S.S.R. include joint traffic scheduling, distribution of traffic among the various modes of transportation, rate structuring and a centralized system of control. A major limitation is the high-cost of transshipment. In the Tennessee Valley Region and in the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Area of the U.S.A., transport integration is based on the principles of joint rate structuring and containership operations respectively. The use of containers eliminates the problem of transshipment; however, the basence of a coordinating body is a major drawback to transport integration in the Tennessee Valley Region. On the basis of these principles, a method for integrating Volta Lake transport with road and railway systems is proposed. The sources of potential traffic for Volta Lake transport are examined and it is concluded that there is a demand for a Volta Lake transportation system. The principles of integrated transport development employed in the U.S.S.R., the Tennessee Valley Region and the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan Area of the U.S.A. are considered to be relevant for application in the Volta Basin. The establishment of a Lake Transport Authority to implement integrated transport policies is recommended. It is concluded that an integrated transportation system will contribute both directly and indirectly to the regional objectives of economic development, the provision of better employment opportunities, a higher level of living, provision of community facilities and services and the rational distribution of settlements. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Mergers

The objective of the thesis is a merger in czech business environment. The first chapter focuses on the history of mergers and motives of mergers. The next part concentrates on the characteristics of the transformation of the companies. The thesis includes description of mergers according to the international accepted standards, mainly IFRS 3 (IAS 22). There is a description of mergers from the legal, accounting and tax point of view. After the theoretical part the thesis describes a real case of a merger of two companies combined with the transformation of legal form.

In an ever increasing competitive environment, pharmaceutical companies keep on expanding. Mergers&Acquisitions (M&A’s) seems to be one of the preferred means of acquiring critical mass and economies of scale. Research has suggested that human resource capability in the post-acquisition implementation is critical. This study intended to explore whether the role of culture in M&A’s are acknowledged at subsidiary level and if so, to establish an applicable framework for managing it. Twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted in order to gain a deeper understanding of the effect of cultural integration on the M&A process. The data was coded, analysed and collapsed into themes in order to establish the applicability of the framework proposed by Lodorfos&Boateng (2006) and possible amendments to it. Rank order tables were used to measure the relative importance of constructs. Only two thirds of senior management at subsidiary level acknowledged the importance of culture at the time of the M&A, management strategies or plans for dealing with it was found to be inadequate with only fifty percent of interviewees being aware of it. The Lodorfos&Boateng (2006) framework is supported by the data generated in this study, but needs to be amended in terms of leadership role, people orientation and communication. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Mergers and acquisitions remain a constant feature of both the local and international markets, but little is definitely know about what determinants of aggregate merger activityThe aim of this research report is to evaluate the dynamic relationship between a selected number of determinants and aggregate merger activity. We limited our selection of determinants to either macroeconomic or market factors, and limited our acquirers listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.We defined aggregate merger activity using three measures, namely, quarterly deal frequency, quarterly deal value and a relative measure, which took the ratio of deal value over the JSE All Share Index. We utilised Gross Domestic Product, the Repurchase Rate, Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Producer Price Index (PPI) as our macroeconomic variables. Our market variables were the JSE All Share Index, the All Bond Index and the USD/ZAR Foreign Exchange Rate. Employing the appropriate data transformations, unit root, regression analysis and cointegration tests we were able to statistically test for the hypothesized relationships.Results indicated that only the Repurchase Rate was applicable in explaining the variation in the deal frequency variable, while none of the chosen determinants were significant in explaining the variation in the deal value and relative deal value measures. Overall, we found in all three cases that the fitted regression model did not explain the variation in our aggregate merger measure well.On a long-term equilibrium basis, we found that the All Bond Index and CPI were cointegrated with the deal frequency measure. The deal value measure had a long-term equilibrium relationship with the JSE All Share Index, while the relative deal value measure had a long term equilibrium relationship with the All Bond Index, CPI and PPI / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Mergers, acquisition, and unemployment have been on the increase in South Africa since 1994 when South Africa became a democratic country. Unemployment is a major challenge facing the South African economy. International researchers have found that in most countries where mergers and acquisitions are encouraged, employees of the acquired companies tend to lose employment in years subsequent to those mergers. This research paper aimed at establishing whether South African employees had similar experiences as those overseas. Altogether 42 listed companies that have been acquired in the period between 1996 and 2008 for the value exceeding R500 million were used for the research. An additional 11 companies not undergoing mergers were also selected. The outcome was that acquired companies negatively affect employment. These companies are able to grow their businesses but not in correlation to growing their workforce. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Selected economic and legal aspects of mergers and acquisitions in the Czech Republic Abstract The aim of this diploma thesis is to describe selected economic and legal aspects of mergers and acquisitions and assess them. In the first part, the diploma thesis focuses on defining the terms of mergers and acquisitions and their classification. Forms of mergers and acquisitions are distinguished and their types based on market position of participating companies are explained. In the second part, the diploma thesis describes motives leading to mergers and acquisitions. The main motive is synergy, a phenomenon of increasing the value of participating companies by merging them. Furthermore, the waves in which mergers and acquisitions were emerging are listed, including the seventh wave which peaked last year. The third part of the diploma thesis focuses on mergers and acquisitions on the Czech market. At first the comparison within the region is provided and afterwards the thesis deals with development over time, mix of industries and largest transactions of last years. Czech Republic is one of the most active countries in the region from the perspective of value of transactions. The value of transactions in years 2011-2017 grew on average significantly faster than the Czech gross domestic product. Largest Czech...