Mergers, Acquisitions and Banking Sector Performance in Nigeria: A Post Consolidation Review

The study is necessitated by the assumption that mergers and acquisitions in the Nigerian banking industry will help to re-position banks for improved performance. The essence of this paper is to ascertain, if there has been any significant difference in the performance of deposit money banks in Nigeria prior to and after the merger sessions. The study made use of Secondary data covering the period 1999 to 2014. A descriptive statistics involving the use of difference in two means was carried out on a time series data. The study found that, mergers and acquisitions impacted significantly on the performance of deposit money banks with Profit before Tax (PBT) and total assets as proxies for bank performance, but that could not be said of Returns on equity, where there was no significant difference between the pre merger and post mergers periods. The results obtained herein attest to the fact that mergers and acquisitions are not the sole panacea to improved bank performance but that issue bothering on corporate governance, sound management, and strong brands have a role to play in the overall success of any banking establishment. The study therefore, recommends that good corporate governance should be entrenched to help build a truly strong, virile and profitable bank that can stand the test of time. Banks should concentrate on creating and maintaining strong brands, as that can be their most single valuable asset. Again, quality risk assets should be created and carefully managed to boost gross earnings and to reduce overhead costs which in turn is expected to boost profit after tax. It is also recommended that customer care services should be made more efficient, as quality service leads to customer loyalty. Banks should constantly design products tailor-made to suit customers’ needs .They should be more aggressive in financial products marketing as this will help to improve financial positioning in term of gross earnings, profit after tax and the net assets. Keywords: Mergers and Acquisitions, Profit after tax, Returns on Equity, Total Assets, Bank consolidatio