Has Financial Crisis Affected the Announcement Gains of Indian Cross-border Acquisitions?

Abstract

The failure of an unparalleled large number of financial institutions during the global financial crisis of 2007–2008 resulted in a freeze of global credit markets. The financial crisis has affected the capital markets around the world. In contrast, the global financial crisis has facilitated the strategic asset-seeking ambitions of emerging market multinationals. The objective of the present article is to examine the market response to cross-border acquisition by Indian companies during 2003– 2015 by conducting event study. We have also compared the acquisition gains before and after the financial crisis. The acquisition gains for the event window (–1, 1) are 2.06 per cent for the entire period 2003–2015 for a sample of 430 announcements. Two-thirds of the acquisitions experienced positive abnormal returns. The abnormal returns are positive and significant for the entire event window of 41 days. The empirical findings also suggest that the CAAR on the event day for pre-crisis period is 4.28 per cent compared to CAAR of 1.70 per cent during post-crisis period. Results are statistically significant. It is evident that market response has muted after the financial crisis.