CROSS-BORDER MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS IN MANUFACTURING SECTOR IN THE EUROPEAN AREA*

Ongoing globalization tendencies of business in general and manufacturing in particular has increased rapidly during the last decades as companies have internationalized their value-chains in a search of competitive advantage through scale and scope throughout the world. Precisely cross-border mergers and acquisitions represent a key strategic and dynamic tool for gaining long-term competitive advantage, diversification, geographical expansion or strengthening its own position in the global market. The main goal of the paper is to analyze the impact of the predictors we have chosen on the volume and frequency of realized cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the manufacturing sector with regard to the origin of the source (19) and target (28) countries in the European area in the time period of 1998 and 2021 through analysis of variance (ANOVA). Through partial analyses, we find out how the manufacturing sector affects the total value of cross-border mergers and acquisitions transactions and whether there is a significant difference in the total value of cross-border mergers and acquisitions within the branches of the manufacturing sector. Attention is also paid to the impact of source and target country membership in the EU on the overall value of cross-border mergers and acquisitions. In the analyses, we also identify other significant influences that have an impact on the conditional value of cross-border mergers and acquisitions.