University of Southern California
University of Southern California Law and Economics Working Paper Series
50+ Years of Diversification Announcements
Abstract
This paper studies the announcement returns from 4,764 mergers over the last 57 years in order to shed light on the causes of corporate diversification. One prominent view is that diversification is value destroying, either because of agency problems or internal investment distortions, but we find that combined (acquirer + target) announcement returns were significantly positive for diversifying mergers throughout the period, and no lower than the returns to related mergers. We find that returns to diversifying acquisitions declined after the 1970s, and that investors rewarded mergers involving financially constrained firms before but not after 1980, consistent with the view that the value of internal capital markets declined after the conglomerate merger wave.
Subject Area
Corporations, Economics, Organizations
Recommended Citation
Mehmet E. Akbulut and John G. Matsusaka,
"50+ Years of Diversification Announcements"
(January 2008).
University of Southern California.
University of Southern California Law and Economics Working Paper Series.
Working Paper 73.
http://law.bepress.com/usclwps/lewps/art73
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