Cross-border versus domestic acquisitions and the impact on shareholder wealth

We analyse the impact on targets and bidders from cross-border acquisitions into and out of the UK, in comparison to companies involved in similar domestic acquisitions. We find both targets and bidders to gain more in cross-border than in comparable domestic acquisitions, with target and bidder cross-border effects of 10.1 and 1.5 percentage points, respectively. The cross-border effect is significantly higher for targets acquired by companies from countries with superior governance systems to their own. There is weak evidence to suggest bidders gain from entering new markets but for targets to gain more where the bidder already operates in the target country