The shortrun impact of acquisitions on shareholder value during the economic downturn for acquiring JSE listed companies

Abstract

The study of Mergers and Acquisitions has remained very topical for over two decades. Mergers and acquisitions attract attention from different stakeholders like Governments, Media, Investors, Employees, Private Equity Firms, Legal Firms, and Investment Banks. However it remains unclear whether Mergers and Acquisitions add shareholder value or not. The aim of this research is to investigate the shortrun impact of acquisitions on shareholder value for companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) within the current economic downturn. It also touches on the impact of Black Economic Empowerment acquisitions on shareholder value. The Cumulative Abnormal Returns (CAR) of acquiring companies around the announcement date were tested to determine whether they were significantly different from zero. The study did find some glimpses of positive and negative statistically significant Cumulative Abnormal Returns over some event windows. However the holistic view did not show any proof of statistically significant Cumulative Abnormal returns around the announcement date. In conclusion this study showed that on average Mergers and Acquisitions have a neutral impact on shareholder value of the acquiring companies.