{"title":"Holistic bidding strategies: Addressing target shareholders’ behavioral resistance in M&As","authors":"Beni Lauterbach , Blake Loriot , Yevgeny Mugerman , Joshua Shemesh","doi":"10.1016/j.frl.2025.106822","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The study examines how behavioral considerations of target shareholders affect deal completion likelihood. Lauterbach, Mugerman and Shemesh (2024) show that bidders adjust their offer prices to accommodate target shareholders’ loss aversion, and we find that these premium adjustments appear to mitigate potential bid resistance. Our tests, conducted in an extensive sample of all U.S. public firm merger offers in 1990–2019, suggest a holistic pricing strategy among bidders: the offer price is based not only on intrinsic values and financial analysis; it also usually incorporates the price adjustment necessary to neutralize target shareholders’ behavioral resistance, thereby facilitating deal acceptance.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12167,"journal":{"name":"Finance Research Letters","volume":"74 ","pages":"Article 106822"},"PeriodicalIF":7.4000,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Finance Research Letters","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S154461232500087X","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BUSINESS, FINANCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The study examines how behavioral considerations of target shareholders affect deal completion likelihood. Lauterbach, Mugerman and Shemesh (2024) show that bidders adjust their offer prices to accommodate target shareholders’ loss aversion, and we find that these premium adjustments appear to mitigate potential bid resistance. Our tests, conducted in an extensive sample of all U.S. public firm merger offers in 1990–2019, suggest a holistic pricing strategy among bidders: the offer price is based not only on intrinsic values and financial analysis; it also usually incorporates the price adjustment necessary to neutralize target shareholders’ behavioral resistance, thereby facilitating deal acceptance.
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