Bank Mergers Current Issues And Perspectives

Historians of our financial system will record this as an age of deregulation and bank mergers. Deregulation, a cornerstone of President Reagan's Administration, resulted in federal and state legislation that contributed to increased competition for financial services and increased merger activity. During the 1981-1986 period, there were 2,139 mergers in banking and finance, accounting for 16 percent of total merger activity.l More mergers occurred in banking and finance than in any other industry. Because of these bank mergers, there are vast amounts of data avail able for scholarly research. This book presents some results of that research which will be of interest to academics, bankers, investors, legislators, and regulators. The book consists of ten articles, and it is divided into three parts. Part 1: National and Regional Bank Mergers gives a broad perspective of merger activity. The first article by Peter S. Rose compared the growth of bank holding companies that merged with those that did not merge. One conclusion of his study was that banks planning mergers tended to be aggressively managed and were often beset by problems, such as low profitability or declining loan quality. Mergers were one solution to their problems. But he found no solid evidence that mergers resulted in greater profitability or reduced risk. He also observed that acquiring banks did not seem to grow faster than those choosing not to merge.

As the financial services industry becomes increasingly international, the more narrowly defined and historically protected national financial markets become less significant. Consequently, financial institutions must achieve a critical size in order to compete. Bank Mergers & Acquisitions analyses the major issues associated with the large wave of bank mergers and acquisitions in the 1990's. While the effects of these changes have been most pronounced in the commercial banking industry, they also have a profound impact on other financial institutions: insurance firms, investment banks, and institutional investors. Bank Mergers & Acquisitions is divided into three major sections: A general and theoretical background to the topic of bank mergers and acquisitions; the effect of bank mergers on efficiency and shareholders' wealth; and regulatory and legal issues associated with mergers of financial institutions. It brings together contributions from leading scholars and high-level practitioners in economics, finance and law.

Mergers and Productivity offers probing analyses of high-profile mergers in a variety of industries. Focusing on specific acquisitions, it illustrates the remarkable range of contingencies involved in any merger attempt. The authors clearly establish each merger's presumed objectives and the potential costs and benefits of the acquisition, and place it within the context of the broader industry. Striking conclusions that emerge from these case studies are that merger and acquisition activities were associated with technological or regulatory shocks, and that a merger's success or failure was dependent upon the acquirer's thorough understanding of the target, its corporate culture, and its workforce and wage structures prior to acquisition. Sifting through a wealth of carefully gathered evidence, these papers capture the richness, the complexity, and the economic intangibles inherent in contemporary merger activity in a way that large-scale studies of mergers cannot.

The papers collected in this volume are those presented at the eighteenth Colloquium arranged by the Societe Universitaire Europeenne de Recherches Financieres (SUERF), which took place in Dublin in May 1994. The Society is supported by a large number of central banks and com mercial banks, by other financial and business institutions and by personal subscriptions from academics and others interested in monetary and financial problems. Since its establishment in 1963, it has developed as a forum for the exchange of information, research results and ideas among academics and practitioners in these fields, including central bank and treasury officials responsible for formulating and applying monetary and financial policies, national and international. A major activity of SUERF is to organise and conduct Colloquia on subjects of topical interest to its members. The titles, places and dates of previous Colloquia for which volumes of the collected papers were published are noted on the last page of this volume.

From the late nineteenth century to the late twentieth century the European banking sector experienced countless mergers and acquisitions. The outcome of this century of consolidation is strikingly similar across the continent, with the banking sector of each country now dominated by a handful of giant banking corporations. Consolidation and concentration trends in banking was the theme of the Academic Archive Colloquium of the European Association for Banking History held in Madrid in June 1997. This volume is comprised of the 18 papers and responses presented at the Colloquium by a truly international group of delegates. Some of the themes explored in the book include: the significance of mergers for bank archives; the regulation of mergers and their impact on banking legislation; reactions to consolidation from within and without the banking industry; case studies of particular mergers and their impact on the wider banking community. Youssef Cassis's introductory chapter provides a general survey of trends in the consolidation process and suggests that the advent of the Euro may herald a new era in the history of European banking consolidation.