Institutional investors and cross‐border mergers and acquisitions: The 2000–2018 period

Abstract

AbstractUsing a sample of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) from 26 countries over 2000–2018, we find that domestic institutional investors facilitate both domestic and cross‐border M&As. The facilitation effect is more pronounced for domestic than cross‐border M&As. When the acquirer country has greater financial freedom or better investor protection than the target country, domestic institutional investors facilitate cross‐border M&As more effectively. As Ordinary Least Squares regressions are not the best approach regarding cross‐border M&As, we confirm that the main results are robust to Zero‐inflated Poisson regressions. Foreign institutional investors' influence on cross‐border M&As is stronger when the sample excludes the United States.