The Conglomerate Merger Problem

Monograph on cost benefit analysis of USA mergers - explains recent trends in terms of capital resources valuation, tax incentives, etc., Examines motivations for and consequences of mergers in relation to small scale industries and shareholders, analyses costs and benefits for consumers, workers and communitys, and comments on problems of official merger prevention company law. Bibliography pp. 74 to 76 and statistical tables.

Business mergers are nowadays much in fashion and in the news, but relatively litte is known about their effects on different aspects of business enterprise, especially their effects on market competition. Narver her distinguishes among three main types of corporate merger: the horizontal, involving firms that produce generally similar items; the vertical, involving a successive (e.g. supplier-customer) relationship between firms and the conglomerate, involving any merger that is neither horizontal nor vertical. Economist have yet to agree on a general definition of the essential aspects of conglomerate mergers or on an adequate description of their effects on competition. the present book derives a precise meaning of conglomerate mergers by analyzing the legislative concern in the 1950 Amendment to Section 7 of the Clayton Act. The book then carefully considers the several factors in conglomerate merges that lead to their ability to affect competition. Most importantly, this analysis suggests under what conditions conglomerate mergers increase competition in a market and under what conditions they lessen it. With notable vigor and patience the author has pieced together various aspects of statistics on conglomerate merge activity, managerial behavior in a diversified firm, and market structure, and has produced the most useful analysis available on the competitive effects of conglomerate mergers. Not everyone will agre with its findings, but here can be no question that legislators, antitrust lawyers, economists, and business people will find them useful. Narver's book is timely because of wide concern with the current wave of mergers, appropriate public policy, and efficient private decision-making. Serval important conglomerate merger cases are now before the courts, and the public policy issues involved are still in the process of clarification. The analysis presented in this book should be important in the discussions of the next several years. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1967.

This is a reprint of a previously published work. It is the product of a conference held in 1981 by the Salomon Center for the Study of Financial Institutions at NYU to explore a wide range of issues concerning mergers and acquisitions.

Mergers are an on-going process in the business environment. They correspond to the combination of two (or more) firms into a unique business concern. This study is grounded on the notion that looking at mergers from a financial point of view may provide a valid platform for analyzing merger movements. The fundamental development of this study is an equilibrium model for determining the market value of a firm when the managerial team is assumed to have better information than the market. It is shown that when a firm with superior information does not have sufficient internal resources (financial slack) to undertake a project, the full value of future investiment opportunities is not necessarily captured in the market value of the firm. This conclusion is obtained because there are situations in which, by taking the project and bringing in new shareholders, old shareholders lose (from the dilution of their holdings in the firm) more than what they get from the extra value added by the new project. The dependency of market value from slack availability opens the possibility of justifying mergers via tender offers. In this context, the merger may be understood as a way to inject resources from a 'cash rich' to a 'cash poor' firm. The expected payoff of this game is positive and equal to the loss in market value due to insufficient slack.