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The purpose of this study is to examine the differential impact of qualitative and quantitative informational signals within the merger and acquisition (M&A) press releases on deal completion and duration. A significant percentage of deals by emerging market acquirers get abandoned before completion, and those that are completed have a longer duration. The limited information about the operations of acquirers from emerging markets creates suspicion among the stakeholders involved in deal resolution, hindering the completion of deals. Thus, using the signal-feedback paradigm, authors investigate how informational signals in the M&A press release impact the deal resolution.

The study employs content analysis on M&A press releases announced by firms from five emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The technique is applied based on the exploration-exploitation framework developed by March (1991) to categorize the announced deal motives (qualitative information). Next, the authors identify the percentage of relevant quantitative information disclosed in the press release, following which results are obtained using logistic and ordinary least square regressions.

The study reports that deals with declared exploratory motives take longer to complete. Additionally, deals disclosing higher percentage of quantitative disclosure exhibit lower completion rate and increased deal duration.

This is the first study to provide evidence that familiarity bias impacts deal duration as relative to exploitation deals that are familiar to the stakeholders; exploratory deals take longer to conclude. Further, our analysis indicates that a greater percentage of quantitative disclosure may not always reduce information risk but rather be interpreted negatively in the form of the acquirer’s overconfidence in the deal’s potential.

The London office market is a major destination of international real estate capital and arguably the epicentre of international real estate investment over the past decade. However, the increase in global uncertainties in recent years due to socio-economic and political trends highlights the need for more insights into the behaviour of international real estate capital flows. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of the global and domestic environment on international real estate investment activities within the London office market over the period 2007–2017.

This study adopts an auto-regressive distributed lag approach using the real capital analytics (RCA) international real estate investment data. The RCA data analyses quarterly cross-border investment transactions within the central London office market for the period 2007–2017.

The study provides insights on the critical differences in the influence of the domestic and global environment on cross-border investment activities in this office market, specifically highlighting the significance of the influence of the global environment in the long run. In the short run, the influence of factors reflective of both the domestic and international environment are important indicating that international capital flows into the London office market is contextualised by the interaction of different factors.

The authors provide a holistic study of the influence of both the domestic and international environment on cross-border investment activities in the London office market, providing more insights on the behaviour of global real estate capital flows.

The global economy has witnessed an exponential increase in cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) by emerging market companies (EMCs), demanding a relook at their internationalization strategy. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the announcement of CBAs by EMCs creates value for the equity-holders of acquiring firms and identify factors affecting the valuation of acquiring companies.

The paper investigates the announcement impact of CBAs of CNX Nifty 500 Indian and SSE 380 Chinese companies. The event study analysis of 553 Indian and 125 Chinese acquisitions supports the contention that CBAs are indeed a strategic choice of EMCs for value creation.

CBAs generate positive and statistically significant abnormal returns for shareholders of both Indian and Chinese acquirers. The markets, however, differ in terms of their motivations; country-level factors have been observed to exert significant influence on the returns of Indian acquirers. Indian companies experience larger value creation on acquiring firms established in developed, institutionally closer and/or economically distant markets. The findings support the asset-seeking motive of Indian companies.

The research work contributes to the evolving stream of CBAs literature with a focus on the globalization strategies of EMCs. The present study is a modest attempt to lay the foundation for a new theoretical framework (asset-seeking perspective) of overseas acquisitions from emerging economies. The existing studies on emerging economies have emphasized, in isolation, either Indian CBAs or international acquisitions by Chinese firms. Being so, the study is unique and original in the sense that it is a comparative study of India and China.

This study aims to investigate the association between firm valuation and earnings quality in several European countries. Also, it examines if country-level governance and market development are important determinants of firm valuation.

Using a sample of 5,002 non-financial firms in 37 European countries over the years 2004 to 2019, the authors evaluate the research question using regression models.

The authors find a significant positive relationship between firm valuation and a multi-factor earnings quality measure based on four components (accruals, cash flows, operating efficiency and exclusions). The authors further show that stock market development is also a driver of firm value, while country-level governance is significant only in the case of a firm fixed effect model with time effects. The results are robust to alternative model specifications that control for endogeneity, sample heterogeneity and alternative proxies for firm valuation.

Policy makers and market participants could benefit from the findings, by exploiting the advantages of earnings quality in terms of high-ranking stocks whose earnings are backed by cash flows and other sustainable sources.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to empirically test the relationship between earnings quality and firm value in the European setting during a period that incorporates the adoption of IFRS. This is quite interesting as it permits cross-border comparability in terms of financial reporting and provides deeper and more representative evidence.

Extending the springboard perspective with the resource dependence theory, the authors posit that cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are a new channel for emerging economy firms (EEFs) to enhance their technology capabilities. This study aims to examine the impact of cross-border M&As initiated by EEFs on their technology augmentation vis-à-vis matched domestic M&A cases and investigate the factors influencing the difference in post-merger innovation capability.

This paper estimates the post-acquisition innovation capability of acquirers from emerging economies (EEs) that engage in cross-border M&As. To remove possible selection bias, the authors leverage a difference-in-difference-style approach in combination with a matched sample constructed by pairing each cross-border M&A case with a similar domestic deal. The data set contains 266 cross-border M&As and 266 matched domestic M&A deals between 2003 and 2011, whereby acquirers are based in 6 EEs and targets are in 36 countries consisting of both EEs and advanced economies (AEs).

The present empirical results show that cross-border M&As engaged by EEFs are an important engine for improving EEFs’ innovation capability through technology augmentation. The main empirical results are as follows. First, compared with matched domestic acquirers with similar characteristics, EE cross-border M&As have a positive effect on innovation capability. Second, the positive effect of the EEFs’ cross-border M&As relative to the matched domestic M&As on innovation capability is driven largely by cross-border M&As with targets in AEs. Third, the increase in post-M&A innovation capability of the EE cross-border acquirers comes mainly from deals where targets are based in countries with relatively superior human capital and innovation capability than those of the acquirers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first systematic study of whether cross-border M&As serve as an effective channel of technology augmentation for EE acquirers compared to matched domestic acquirers with similar characteristics.

Over the last decade, the sustainability concept has progressively enticed both practitioners and researchers around the world. Despite the research interest in the role of sustainability in mergers and acquisitions (M&As), a number of critical questions remained unanswered. The aim of this chapter is to review and synthesize the existing research on sustainability and M&As in the fields of management, international business, finance, accounting, and economics and identify avenues for further research. The literature review has been organized according to the process perspective of M&As, that is, the pre-M&A and post-M&A phases. The review of the literature revealed that most of the existing literature used proxies of sustainability such as environment, social, and governance (ESG) rating or corporate social responsibility (CSR) and attempted to examine the relationship between ESG/CSR performance with stock market reaction and returns. While a small but growing number of studies examined the role of sustainability in M&As, there are scopes for further research. This chapter puts forward a research agenda that calls for a more granular examination of the role of sustainability in pre-M&A phases such as the target selection process, that is, due diligence and negotiation process in domestic and cross-border M&As. Moreover, future studies should investigate the role of sustainability during the post-M&A phase, for example, integration of sustainability practices during the post-M&A stage.

While the existing studies largely suggest that valuation uncertainty benefits acquirers, who apply discounts to targets' value attributable to information asymmetry, the authors argue that the opposite may be the case.

Through multivariate econometric analysis of transaction data, the authors establish the link between the degree of valuation uncertainty measured by targets' track of public listing and acquisition premia. The authors use text-mining tools to measure acquirer–target similarity and control for its role in intermediating the posited empirical relationships.

Having analyzed 618 acquisitions involving listed targets from China, the authors find that acquirers pay higher valuation premia for the more recently listed and relatively younger companies than for those with a longer history since floatation. Similar patterns apply to valuation multiples. Higher valuations are partially attributable to premia for control, as acquirers are likelier to buy a majority stake in the recently listed firms, especially if the latter are similar to them. Such transactions take less time to complete and involve a transfer of larger share blocks despite the higher degree of information asymmetry and a frequent lack of targets' operational profitability. The authors also observe a significant premium for target–acquirer similarity: acquirers appear to rush deal completion due to possible overestimation of targets' potential and familiarity bias.

The authors show that acquisition premia may be driven by acquirers' proclivity to place risky investment bets on the growth potential of opaque targets. This pattern may partially explain frequent failures of mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

This study aims to investigate the impact of international diversification on the value and operating efficiency of European real estate firms.

The study is conducted using a panel fixed effects regression model to estimate the relationship of international diversification with firm value and operating efficiency. International diversification is mainly measured via the negative of the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) using property-level data. Firm value and operating efficiency are proxied by financial ratios observed annually from 2002 to 2021 at the firm level.

The results demonstrate that international diversification has a negative effect on firm value. Additionally, it lowers operating efficiency by weakening a firm's ability to generate operating earnings from its assets. By examining whether the reduction in operating efficiency is due to the rental income channel or the capital gains channel, the authors find strong statistical evidence that international diversification negatively impacts capital gains. International diversification is negatively associated with net gains from property valuations (unrealized capital gains) and net profits from property disposals (realized capital gains).

The empirical analysis is limited to Europe.

This paper extends the geographical diversification literature. While existing literature focuses on domestic diversification within the United States, this paper explores the effects of international diversification on European real estate firms. To the extent of the authors' knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the impact of geographical diversification on capital gains.

The case was developed from secondary sources and interviews with a security analyst. The secondary sources include company annual reports, news reports, analyst reports, industry reports, company websites, stock exchange websites and databases such as Bloomberg and CMIE Prowess.

Increasing competition in product and capital markets has put tremendous pressure on managers to become more cost competitive. To address their firms' uncompetitive cost structures, managers may have to consider dramatic restructuring of their businesses. During 2014–2017, Tata Steel Ltd (TSL) UK considered a series of divestitures and a merger plan to nurse the company back to health. The case considers the economics of the restructuring plan. The case is designed to help students analyze a corporate downsizing program undertaken by a large Indian company in the UK and to highlight the dynamic role of the CFO and governance issues in family firms. It introduces students to issues surrounding a typical restructuring and provides students a platform to practice the estimation of value creation in a restructuring exercise. While some cases on corporate restructuring in the context of developed economies are available, there are very few cases written in an emerging market context. This case bridges that gap. TSL presents a unique opportunity to study corporate restructuring necessitated by a failed cross-border acquisition. It illustrates the potential for value loss in large, cross-border acquisitions. It shows how managerial hubris can prompt family firm owners to overbid in acquisitions and create legacy hot spots. In addition, the case can be used to discuss the causes of governance failures such as weak institutional monitoring and poor legal enforcement in emerging markets that could potentially harm minority shareholders.

The case was developed from secondary sources and interviews with a security analyst. The secondary sources include company annual reports, news reports, analyst reports, industry reports, company websites, stock exchange websites and databases such as Bloomberg and CMIE Prowess.

The study attempts to identify the linkages in the term structure of illiquidity and the impact of global and domestic factors on sovereign bonds in emerging Asia. The objective of the study ensues on defining the direction of illiquidity spillover across bonds of varying tenors.

This study explores the joint dynamics of contemporary liquidity risk premia and its time-varying effect on the term structure spectrum using the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) spillover framework.

A substantial relationship was found to exist between the liquidity of bonds with closer terms to maturity. The macroeconomic environment primarily impacts the liquidity of 10-year bonds, and they spiral down to the subsequent bond liquidity, exhibiting a rippling effect. The authors further show that the direction of liquidity shock transmission is from long- to medium- and thence to short-term bonds. Among the global factors, foreign investments and S & P 500 VIX significantly affect the liquidity of 10-year bonds.

The study has several implications for academicians, policymakers and domestic and global investment professionals. The drivers of liquidity risk and the transmission across the term structure help investors in designing efficient portfolio diversification strategies. The results are relevant for cross-border investors in the valuation of emerging Asian sovereign bonds while deciding on asset allocations and hedging strategies. The monetary regulators strive on a continuous basis to improve the liquidity in sovereign bond markets in order to ensure efficient funding of development activities. This study finds that short-term bonds are more liquid than long-term bonds. Their auction framework with higher series of short-term bond issues helps to provide the required liquidity in the markets.

The term structure of illiquidity is upward sloping, inferring a higher underlying liquidity risk of long-term bonds compared to short-term bonds. This finding suggests that a higher representation of short-term bonds in the auction framework helps to enhance the overall market liquidity.

This study offers insights into the debate on the shape of the term structure of illiquidity and the point of origination of liquidity shocks. Further, the direction of spillover across a wide spectrum of bonds is also demonstrated.