Impact of M&A Announcement on Stock Returns of Acquirer Companies: New Evidence from Indian Stock Market

Abstract

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As) are often used as preferred tools of corporate structuring to serve a variety of business objectives and add value for the shareholders. Earlier studies have triggered a number of questions regarding the impact of M&As for the shareholders of acquiring companies. This paper focuses on the M&A among Indian companies and the response of the Indian capital market to such attempts as reflected in the changes in the stock return for different window periods close the M&A announcement. The findings of the present study suggest that there is significant impact of M&A announcement on stock returns for almost half of the sample acquirer companies. The study offers evidence in support of the contention that Indian stock market is not efficient in the semi-strong form with respect to M&A announcement information for acquirer companies and emphasizes that  investment analyst cannot ignore the information regarding the M&A deals.