Managerial horizons in stock financed mergers

We examine managerial decision horizons for target and acquirer firms in stock financed mergers and acquisitions. We find that acquirer CEOs have longer decision horizons than target firm CEOs in stock financed mergers. Acquirer CEOs in cash financed mergers and acquisitions also have longer decision horizons than target CEOs. Acquirer CEOs in both stock and cash financed mergers have significantly higher proportions of equity based compensation and significantly lower proportions of cash based compensation than target CEOs. In logistic regressions, measures of decision horizons for target and acquirer CEOs are not significantly related to the odds of stock financing in mergers and acquisitions. Moreover, measures of managerial decision horizons are not uniformly higher for stock acquirers or uniformly lower for stock targets on comparison with CEOs of firms of similar size. Our results do not offer strong support to the implications from the Shleifer and Vishny theory on the rationale for stock financed acquisitions.