Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
5110075 | Journal of Family Business Strategy | 2016 | 17 Pages |
Abstract
We investigate how family ownership influences the industry-diversifying nature of M&As by listed companies in Continental Europe and the corresponding shareholder value effects at deal announcement. For a large sample of 3485 M&As during 2005-2013, we observe that acquirers having a family as the largest shareholder are less inclined to take over an unrelated target firm than lone-founder and other types of non-family firms. However, as the size of the family ownership stake increases, family firms become more eager to follow an industry-diversifying M&A strategy. While industry-diversifying M&As are associated with lower abnormal returns for acquirer shareholders on average, we also observe that family ownership fully reverses this negative effect. We therefore conclude that those unrelated M&As, although still representing a conflict of interest with the family firm's minority investors, do not destroy shareholder value on average.
Keywords
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Business and International Management
Authors
Corneel Defrancq, Nancy Huyghebaert, Mathieu Luypaert,