M&A Performance Across the Business Cycles

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this thesis is to test if the depth of business cycles, i.e. if the acquisition is performed early or late within a cycle, affects performance. The intention is to contribute to M&A research by using stock market data and accounting data from selected companies to bring further light on postperformance research by adding the variable of business cycles. The authors also wish to shed light on these issues by investigating whether acquisitions undertaken in boom and bust periods differ in success rate. This study is undertaken using a quantitative approach. The methodology has been completed to fit the purpose of the thesis and the given time frame. Two statistical tests, Student´s t-test and Wilcoxon Test, have also been performed in order to determine significance of the results The findings of this thesis imply that the abnormal returns of M&As varies across the business cycle. This suggests that top management at companies could gain a lot if they pay more attention to the business cycle and when to conduct M&As. The results of this thesis complement existing research on M&A performance in business cycles, e.g. Bouwman et al. (2007) and Pangarkar and Lie (2004), but it also adds to research by measuring performance in terms of depth of each business cycle.