Evaluating companies for mergers and acquisitions

Mergers and acquisitions are one of the cornerstones of firm growth, and have attracted considerable attention from the scholarly research community in the last three decades. Several studies have concluded that M&A transactions do not result in better performance, and can even erode the acquiring firm's shareholder value to produce highly volatile market returns. Others have identified reasons for such inefficiencies. However, very little attention has been given to business evaluation process as an influencing factor. This thirtieth volume in the acclaimed International Business & Management series investigates how the processes involved in the evaluation of a target firm influence the outcome of M&As. Co-authored by international business expert Pervez Ghauri, it highlights the processes that should be followed to evaluate potential acquisition targets, and how a proper evaluation can influence the M&A performance. It encourages greater reliance on the strength and independence of the business evaluation process, and brings clarity in understanding the relationship between different components of business evaluation.