Abstract:
Ownership takeovers often follow complex strategies where the control of the target firm is acquired through a sequence of independent contracts. We study the role of capital gain taxes on the contract structure and on the method of finance of merger and acquisitions (M&As). We find that capital gain taxes discourage cash-to-stock transactions and that this effect is stronger in sequential acquisitions. In addition, we show that capital gain taxes promote sequential acquisitions and thus carry a beneficial welfare effect by avoiding the waste of productive resources due to unprofitable mergers. We provide empirical support for the model predictions by estimating a bivariate probit on a sample of acquisition contracts collected from the Thomson Financial SDC database.