Resumen de Misvaluation and UK mergers 1986-2002

Jerry Coakley, Lei Fu, Thomas Hardy

• We provide evidence that ex ante misvaluation matters for merger activities in the UK 1986-2002 using a sample of 302 bidders and targets. Sector or long-run misvaluation causes merger firms to be more overvalued than nonmerger firms. Acquirers are overvalued absolutely and relative to targets which are themselves absolutely undervalued. Bidders use mergers to purchase the superior long-term growth prospects of targets. Finally our probit regression results provide evidence that misvaluation drives merger waves in the UK.