La adquisición de empresas. ¿En qué nivel de relación industrial son un modo más apropiado de diversificación empresarial?

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.