01257nam a22001817a 4500 190323b xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d 0304-405X Bid anticipation, information revelation, and merger gains / by Wenyu Wang Wenyu Wang Amsterdam Elsevier May 2018 Pages 320-343 Journal of Financial Economics 128 (2) 0304-405X Abstract Because firms’ takeover motives are unobservable to investors, mergers are only partially anticipated and often appear as mixed blessings for acquirers. I construct and estimate a model to study the causes and consequences of bid anticipation and information revelation in mergers. Controlling for the market’s reassessment of the acquirer’s stand-alone value, I estimate that acquirers gain 4% from a typical merger. The total value of an active merger market averages 13% for acquirers, part of which is capitalized in their pre-merger market values. My model also explains the correlation between announcement returns and firm characteristics, as well as the low predictability of mergers. Mergers and acquisitions Revelation Anticipation Merger gains lcc SE 361355 361355 0 0 lcc 0 CL CL PER 2019-03-23 0 2019-03-23 00:00:00 2019-03-23 SE