Impact of Merger and Acquisition announcement on stock returns: Evidence from Pakistan.

Abstract

This study examines a sample of 18 Merger and Acquisition announcements in Pakistan during the period of 2006-2015 and investigates the impact of M&A announcements on stock returns and trading volume of participative firms. Event study methodology is used to calculate the abnormal returns and the volatility of trading volume of 36 listed and publicly traded financial and non-financial firms around 11days 21days and 31days event window. Analysis indicates significant positive abnormal returns of bidding firms for all three event windows, while target firms earn significant positive abnormal return of 6.7% for 31 day event window. At the same time, for 11day and 21 day window insignificant positive abnormal return is observed for target firms. Further, this study also finds an insignificant increase in trading volume of target firms within 5 days after the announcement date. While trading volume of bidding firms shows drop line after the announcement date for all three event windows. Comment