Relative equity market valuation conditions and acquirers’ gains
研究了并购双方所在国的相对股票市场估值条件如何帮助收购方管理者选择公告时机，发现国内高估值时期收购数量更多且收益更高，尤其当目标公司位于新兴市场时。
We examine whether the relative equity market valuation conditions (EMVCs) in the countries of merging firms help acquirers’ managers to time the announcements of both domestic and foreign targets. After controlling for several deal- and merging firm-specific features we find that the number of acquisitions and acquirers’ gains are higher during periods of high-EMVCs at home, irrespective of the domicile of the target. We also find that the higher gains of foreign target acquisitions realized during periods of high-EMVCs at home stem from acquiring targets based in the RoW (=World-G7), rather than the G6 (=G7-UK) group of countries. We argue that this is due to the low correlation of EMVCs between the UK (home) and the RoW group of countries. However, these gains disappear or even reverse during the post-announcement period. Moreover, acquisitions of targets domiciled in the RoW (G6) countries yield higher (lower) gains than acquisitions of domestic targets during periods of high-EMVCs at home. This suggests that the relative EMVCs between the merging firms’ countries allow acquirers’ managers to time the market and acquire targets at a discount, particularly in countries in which acquirers’ stocks are likely to be more overvalued than the targets’ stocks.