A study on the determinants of the performance of mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunication service industry

Abstract

There have been numerous mergers and acquisitions (M$\amp$A) activities in the world, primarily in the United States and Europe. Especially, the wave of M$\amp$A in the telecommunications industry is caused by several historical big events that affect market structure and competition: 1) “The Revision of the Telecommunications Act” of the United States in 1996, 2) “An Agreement of WTO” in 1997, and 3) “The Integration of European Union” in 1998. These events made the strategic alliance not leave the best solution, though it had appeared a fashion of the world telecommunications market. In addition, the privatization and the liberalization of the telecommunications industry have resulted in fierce competition and profitability decrease, although the telecommunication industry has much grown up, which may motivate telecommunication service enterprise to become more large and global enterprise. Moreover the extension of cross-border investment in the telecommunications industry is bringing about the world telecommunication markets to a single market, as the regulation of the telecommunications industry is appeased. Many theories of M$\amp$A have been developed in the area of business and finance. The general purpose of M$\amp$A is to create synergy, but the negative performance of M$\amp$A has been found in the past empirical studies. That is the motivation of this study. First of all, we addressed the question whether the M$\amp$A in the telecommunication service industry creates higher or lower performance for the acquiring firm. Then, what are the determinants of the performance, and how do the determinants affect the performance in the telecommunication service industry. To solve these question, we establish two hypotheses group: 1) value-creation hypotheses: the M$\amp$A in the telecommunication service industry will create positive or negative performance. 2) Comparative hypotheses: Some factors derived from the current trend of M$\amp$A becoming more la...