Liquidity mergers

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Almeida, Heitor; Campello, Murillo; Hackbarth, Dirk
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; National Bureau of Economic Research; Cornell University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-405X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfineco.2011.08.002
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 526-558
• 关键词: Mergers and acquisitions; credit lines; cash; Asset-specificity; Financial distress

摘要

We study the interplay between corporate liquidity and asset reallocation. Our model shows that financially distressed firms are acquired by liquid firms in their industries even in the absence of operational synergies. We call these transactions liquidity mergers, since their purpose is to reallocate liquidity to firms that are otherwise inefficiently terminated. We show that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur when industry-level asset-specificity is high and firm-level asset-specificity is low. We analyze firms' liquidity policies as a function of real asset reallocation, examining the trade-offs between cash and credit lines. We verify the model's prediction that liquidity mergers are more likely to occur in industries in which assets are industry-specific, but transferable across firms. We also show that firms are more likely to use credit lines (relative to cash) in industries in which liquidity mergers are more frequent. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.