MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS WAVES FROM THE EUROPEAN UNION PERSPECTIVE

Vancea Mariana ()
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Vancea Mariana: Universitatea din Oradea, Facultatea de Stiinte Economice, AFER

Annals of Faculty of Economics, 2013, vol. 1, issue 2, 272-283

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the mergers and acquisitions waves that marked the European Union and to emphasize specific characteristics of each period. Thus, we focused on the periods characterized by a significant increase in the number of operations, concentrated in a short period of time. United States have experienced six waves of mergers and acquisitions while in Europe they were less pronounced until the '60s, when increasing interdependence of economies favored concentration movement. The year 1986 marked the construction of the Single Market and for that reason the wave of mergers and acquisitions that Europe experienced in the late 80s (1987-1991) represented, in fact, the first truly European wave. The next M&A (mergers and acquisitions) wave took place in the late 90s (1997-2000), the last wave began around 2003 and ended quickly, in 2007, with the outbreak of the financial crisis. Thus, the objective of this paper is to reveal how the mergers and acquisitions activity in the EU evolved during these waves. At the European level, the introduction of Euro, globalization, technological innovation, deregulation and privatization, low interest rates, financial markets boom and existing liquidity led to an increase in mergers and acquisitions activity. We analyzed the evolution of M&As in the European Union, both of the national, community, and international ones. We compared M&A activity in new Member States and old Member States, and we presented some sectoral aspects. The data presented in the paper can shape the new profile of the global economy. Thus, the United States no longer have absolute supremacy in terms of mergers and acquisitions. EU firms have become important players in the global market of mergers and acquisitions. This paper is based on a systematic, logical, and comparative analysis of scientific literature and of the statistic data provided by the European Commission and UNCTAD referring to mergers and acquisitions. Thus, we used as a research method the qualitative approach in order to analyse the European Union M&A activity.

Keywords: mergers; acquisitions; waves; European Union (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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