Mergers, acquisitions and control of telecommunications firms in Europe

New evidence is presented about 12 large acquisitions by telecommunications firms in Europe. The average effect on acquirers' shareholder value is not significantly different from zero, which confirms a paradox found by previous studies: bidding firms' shareholders do not benefit from takeovers. There is high dispersion in the results. This suggests that detailed studies may uncover important aspects of the constraints that exist in the corporate control market of telecommunications firms. A case study of the Spanish firm Telefonica suggests that corporate governance problems and political intervention are significant components of these "agency" constraints. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.