Acquisitions Driven by Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals?* Fangjian Fu Singapore Management University Lee Kong Chian School of Business 50 Stamford Road Singapore 178899 Email:
[email protected] Telephone: (+65) 6828 0244 Leming Lin University of Florida Warrington College of Business Administration Gainesville, FL 32611-7150 Email:
[email protected] Telephone: (352) 226-6409 Micah Officer Loyola Marymount University College of Business Administration Hilton Center for Business, 1 LMU Drive Los Angeles, CA 90045-2659 Email:
[email protected] Telephone: (310) 338-7658 This draft: July 2011 First draft: June 2008 * We are grateful to Tom Bates, Jie Cai, Alex Edmans, Vidhan Goyal, Iftekhar Hasan, Shane Heitzman, David Hirshleifer, Mike Lemmon, Li Jin, Roger Loh, Michelle Lowry, Tom Noe, Matt Rhodes-Kropf, Bill Schwert, Cliff Smith, Mike Stegemoller, Geoffrey Tate, Cong Wang, An Yan, and seminar participants at Chinese University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore, Queen’s University at Canada, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Singapore Management University, University of Connecticut, University of Rochester, 2009 FMA Asian and North American meetings, 2010 China International Conference in Finance, and 2010 City University of Hong Kong Corporate Finance Conference for helpful comments and discussion. Fu acknowledges the financial support of SMU research grant No. C207/MSS8B002. Acquisitions Driven by Stock Overvaluation: Are They Good Deals? Abstract Overvaluation may motivate a firm to use its stock to acquire a target whose stock is not as overpriced (Shleifer and Vishny (2003)). Though hypothetically desirable, these acquisitions in practice create little, if any, value for acquirer shareholders. Two factors often impede value creation: payment of a large premium to the target and lack of economic synergies in the acquisition.