Applied Research Methods - Mergers and acquisitions (M&A)

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2011 in the subject Business economics - Investment and Finance grade: 87 % University of Sunderland course: Applied Research Methods for Business and Management language: English abstract: Throughout the last decades mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are achieving increasing importance in the corporate world. There are many motives such as to increase the market power and competitive advantage to reduce dependence on suppliers to gain fast access to new market etc. why managers adopting an acquisitions strategy. Nevertheless many M&As have been unsuccessful in the past due to incompetent managers poor ethics inadequate analysis prior the deal and diversification away from the core business of the company. Therefore a careful industry target company and product portfolio analysis must be made before the deal. The literature provides different frameworks and analytical tools that can be used in the M&A process in order to avoid typical risks. However because of the uniqueness of each M&A deal it is important to gain further insights in these transactions in order to provide an appropriate guideline on how to select an optimal M&A target.