Target Accounting Quality and Merger Consideration Design
Abstract
This study examines how accounting quality of target firms relates to the design of merger consideration in acquisition agreements. Prior literature suggests that acquirers mitigate adverse selection problems by making the value of merger consideration sensitive to the acquirers’ merger announcement returns. Using a large sample of acquisition agreements of public merging parties between 1996 and 2017, I investigate whether high-quality accounting information of target firms helps acquirers mitigate adverse selection problems and in turn affects the sensitivity of merger consideration to the acquirers’ merger announcement returns. I hypothesize and find that accounting quality of target firms is negatively related to the sensitivity of merger consideration to the acquirers’ merger announcement returns. Additionally, this relation is more pronounced when acquirers have greater incentives to resolve adverse selection problems and less pronounced when acquirers can collect more information about targets from other sources. Collectively, my evidence suggests that high-quality accounting information of target firms helps acquirers resolve adverse selection problems and affects the design of merger consideration.
Subject Area
Accounting
Recommended Citation
Zhou, Yuyun, "Target Accounting Quality and Merger Consideration Design" (2020). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI27960912.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI27960912