(Universidad Icesi, Facultad de Ciencias Administrativas y Económicas, 2015-07-01) Mercado Salgado, Patricia; Cernas Ortiz, Daniel Arturo
The objective of this correlational study is to examine the level of industrial relatedness between companies,
the acquirer (which is diversifying) and the acquired, at which the stock market’s reaction is more
positive. In order to reach that goal, we used event study methodology over several days before and
after the announcement of a sample of 460 acquisitions made by U.S. companies in the years 2000 to
2003. The results partially support the hypothesis that a firm’s value increases more sharply when the
acquisition announcement involves moderately related firms. Nonetheless, only when the average level
of relatedness was low (not being zero) the stock market reaction was more favorable.
