Serial Acquirers in the Nordics: The Impact of Ownership on Short-term Value Creation
(2025) BUSN79 20251Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- The primary aim of the paper is to evaluate whether listed Nordic serial acquirers create short-term abnormal returns at the time of acquisition announcements, and also to determine if serial acquirers experience diminishing returns following additional acquisition announcements, and if concentrated family ownership mitigates the diminishing returns.
Theoretical perspectives used include agency theory, Jensen’s free cash flow framework, Roll’s hubris hypothesis, Keynes diminishing marginal returns logic, learning theory, and the efficient market hypothesis.
The study utilizes pooled OLS regressions including fixed effects such as year, industry, and country, and several control variables to account for both acquirer specific and deal... (More) - The primary aim of the paper is to evaluate whether listed Nordic serial acquirers create short-term abnormal returns at the time of acquisition announcements, and also to determine if serial acquirers experience diminishing returns following additional acquisition announcements, and if concentrated family ownership mitigates the diminishing returns.
Theoretical perspectives used include agency theory, Jensen’s free cash flow framework, Roll’s hubris hypothesis, Keynes diminishing marginal returns logic, learning theory, and the efficient market hypothesis.
The study utilizes pooled OLS regressions including fixed effects such as year, industry, and country, and several control variables to account for both acquirer specific and deal specific factors which could influence returns post acquisition announcement. Three main regressions are run, one to test for the overall announcement returns across all observations, one to test whether the number of prior acquisitions has any effect on announcement returns, and one where an interaction term between family ownership and prior M&A is utilized. The paper focuses on cumulative abnormal returns in the +-1, +-3 and +-5 days, with the total number of observations being 3,882 in the period 1997 – 2024, across 191 firms listed in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
The main takeaways from the paper is that Nordic serial acquirers experience cumulative abnormal returns at the announcement of acquisitions across all three studied event windows, and that there is no evidence to suggest any decline in returns when subsequent acquisition announcements are made, and additionally, no evidence to suggest that family ownership creates any difference in this relationship. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9194865
- author
- Bülow, Gustaf LU and Svensson, Viking LU
- supervisor
-
- Diem Nguyen LU
- organization
- alternative title
- Does family ownership matter?
- course
- BUSN79 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Serial acquirers, Family ownership, Abnormal returns, Event study, Nordic M&A
- language
- English
- id
- 9194865
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-26 12:48:38
- date last changed
- 2025-06-26 12:48:38
@misc{9194865,
abstract = {{The primary aim of the paper is to evaluate whether listed Nordic serial acquirers create short-term abnormal returns at the time of acquisition announcements, and also to determine if serial acquirers experience diminishing returns following additional acquisition announcements, and if concentrated family ownership mitigates the diminishing returns.
Theoretical perspectives used include agency theory, Jensen’s free cash flow framework, Roll’s hubris hypothesis, Keynes diminishing marginal returns logic, learning theory, and the efficient market hypothesis.
The study utilizes pooled OLS regressions including fixed effects such as year, industry, and country, and several control variables to account for both acquirer specific and deal specific factors which could influence returns post acquisition announcement. Three main regressions are run, one to test for the overall announcement returns across all observations, one to test whether the number of prior acquisitions has any effect on announcement returns, and one where an interaction term between family ownership and prior M&A is utilized. The paper focuses on cumulative abnormal returns in the +-1, +-3 and +-5 days, with the total number of observations being 3,882 in the period 1997 – 2024, across 191 firms listed in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden.
The main takeaways from the paper is that Nordic serial acquirers experience cumulative abnormal returns at the announcement of acquisitions across all three studied event windows, and that there is no evidence to suggest any decline in returns when subsequent acquisition announcements are made, and additionally, no evidence to suggest that family ownership creates any difference in this relationship.}},
author = {{Bülow, Gustaf and Svensson, Viking}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Serial Acquirers in the Nordics: The Impact of Ownership on Short-term Value Creation}},
year = {{2025}},
}