Liquid stock as an acquisition currency

Sheng Huang, Johan Maharjan and Vikram Nanda

Journal of Corporate Finance, 2024, vol. 85, issue C

Abstract: We examine how stock liquidity affects acquisitions. We hypothesize that liquidity enhances acquirer stock as an acquisition currency, especially when the target is relatively less liquid. As hypothesized, we find that more liquid firms have a greater likelihood of making stock acquisitions. Further, the difference in stock liquidity between acquirer and target firms increases payment with stock, reduces acquisition premiums, and improves acquirer announcement returns in equity deals. Consequently, firms take steps to improve stock liquidity prior to stock acquisitions. We use policy initiatives as exogenous shocks to firm liquidity to show that liquidity effects on acquisitions are plausibly causal.

Keywords: Stock liquidity; Mergers and acquisitions; Decimalization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G30 G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119924000245
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:corfin:v:85:y:2024:i:c:s0929119924000245

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2024.102562

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Corporate Finance is currently edited by A. Poulsen and J. Netter

More articles in Journal of Corporate Finance from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().