Acquiring the Family Way Performance of Serial Acquirers in Family versus Non-family Firms
(2025) NEKN02 20251Department of Economics
- Abstract
- This thesis investigates how family ownership affects the short-term market reaction to acquisition announcements by serial acquirers. While family firms are traditionally viewed as conservative and long-term oriented, some engage in repeated acquisitions, a strategy typically associated with higher risk and managerial overconfidence. Using a sample of 678 acquisitions by Swedish publicly listed firms from 2010 to 2024, we compare the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) around M&A announcements between family and non-family firms. Our results
show that family-owned serial acquirers experience significantly lower short-term abnormal returns than their non-family equivalents, suggesting that markets react less favorably to acquisitions led... (More) - This thesis investigates how family ownership affects the short-term market reaction to acquisition announcements by serial acquirers. While family firms are traditionally viewed as conservative and long-term oriented, some engage in repeated acquisitions, a strategy typically associated with higher risk and managerial overconfidence. Using a sample of 678 acquisitions by Swedish publicly listed firms from 2010 to 2024, we compare the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) around M&A announcements between family and non-family firms. Our results
show that family-owned serial acquirers experience significantly lower short-term abnormal returns than their non-family equivalents, suggesting that markets react less favorably to acquisitions led by family firms. These findings remain under alternative definitions of family ownership, and remain robust to several model specifications. The results contribute to the literature by highlighting the interaction between ownership structure and acquisition strategy, suggesting that family control may not always align with investor expectations in an acquisition
driven context. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9194940
- author
- Wojcieszek, Eryka LU and Stenhård, Julia LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- NEKN02 20251
- year
- 2025
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Family Ownership, Serial Acquirers, M&A, Abnormal Returns, Corporate Governance
- language
- English
- id
- 9194940
- date added to LUP
- 2025-09-12 10:40:41
- date last changed
- 2025-09-12 10:40:41
@misc{9194940, abstract = {{This thesis investigates how family ownership affects the short-term market reaction to acquisition announcements by serial acquirers. While family firms are traditionally viewed as conservative and long-term oriented, some engage in repeated acquisitions, a strategy typically associated with higher risk and managerial overconfidence. Using a sample of 678 acquisitions by Swedish publicly listed firms from 2010 to 2024, we compare the cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) around M&A announcements between family and non-family firms. Our results show that family-owned serial acquirers experience significantly lower short-term abnormal returns than their non-family equivalents, suggesting that markets react less favorably to acquisitions led by family firms. These findings remain under alternative definitions of family ownership, and remain robust to several model specifications. The results contribute to the literature by highlighting the interaction between ownership structure and acquisition strategy, suggesting that family control may not always align with investor expectations in an acquisition driven context.}}, author = {{Wojcieszek, Eryka and Stenhård, Julia}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Acquiring the Family Way Performance of Serial Acquirers in Family versus Non-family Firms}}, year = {{2025}}, }