Takeovers after "Takeovers"

We review five decades of takeover actively in the UK. We assess the relative characteristics of acquiring and acquired companies and the performance impacts of merger using both accounting and share price based measures. We conclude that the fundamental conclusions reached by Ajit Singh about takeovers and the market for corporate control in his seminal contributions of the 1970s remain true in the light of subsequent work.Takeovers, Natural Selection, Market for Corporate Control

The Long-Run Performance of Hostile Takeovers: UK Evidence

This paper examines the long-run pre- and post-takeover performance of hostile takeovers in the U.K. from 1985-96. Prior to takeover, targets in hostile takeovers experience a significant deterioration in profit returns, and significantly negative share returns. However, there is little evidence that profit levels are lower than those of non- merging firms. Bidders in hostile takeovers are not superior performers in terms of profit levels, although share returns are significantly high prior to takeover. However, in the post-takeover period hostile takeovers show significant improvements in profit returns, which are associated with significant asset disposals. In contrast, friendly takeovers do not improve profit returns and result in significantly negative long-run share returns. We find no evidence of an inverse relation between the performance improvement in hostile takeovers and the pre-takeover performance of the target. We interpret the results to indicate that although hostile takeovers improve performance, there is little evidence that they play an important role in reversing the nonvalue maximizing behaviour of target companies.Hostile takeovers; friendly takeovers; disciplinary hypothesis; pre-takeover performance; post-takeover performance

UK Corporate Governance and Takeover Performance

This chapter addresses the changing nature of corporate governance in the United Kingdom over recent decades and examines whether these changes have had an impact on the UK market for corporate control. The disappointing outcomes for acquiring company shareholders in the majority of corporate acquisitions, public discontent with some pay deals for top executives and some high profile corporate scandals led in the early 1990s to a call for governance reform. The scrutiny of governance in UK companies has intensified since the publication of the Cadbury Report in 1992 and has resulted in calls for changes in the size, composition and role of boards of directors, in the role of institutional shareholders, the remuneration and appointment of executives, and in legal and accounting regulations. We review the background to these changes and the consequences of the changes since 1990 for governance structures. Finally, we examine whether these changes have affected takeover performance in recent years. Our analysis is specific to the institutional circumstances of the UK although we refer where appropriate to takeover studies in other countries.Corporate governance; takeovers; UK; financial performance; Cadbury

Managerial Discretion and Takeover Performance

We investigate the relation between long run takeover performance and board share ownership in the acquiring company for a sample of 142 UK takeovers completed between 1985-95. We find evidence of a non-linear relationship both between board ownership and takeover profitability, and between board ownership and post-takeover share returns. We cast the analysis in a simultaneous equations framework using non- linear two-stage least squares, and find that our results are robust to this alternative specification. The results are therefore consistent with a managerial alignment / entrenchment trade-off.Corporate takeovers; board ownership; profitability; long run share returns

Management characteristics, collaboration and innovative efficiency: evidence from UK survey data

This paper explores the impact of management characteristics and patterns of collaboration on a firmÕs innovation performance in transforming innovation resources into commercially successful outputs. These questions are investigated using a recent firm level survey database for 465 innovative British small and medium enterprises (SMEs) over the years 1998-2001. Both Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) are employed to benchmark a firmÕs innovative efficiency against best practice. Quality and the variety of innovations are taken into account by combining Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with DEA. We find evidence suggesting that the innovative efficiency of SMEs is significantly affected by their management characteristics and collaboration behaviour. Collaboration, organisational flexibility, formality in management systems and incentive schemes are found to contribute significantly to a firmÕs innovative efficiency. Managerial share-ownership also shows some positive effect. The importance of these effects, however, varies across different sectors. WE find that innovative efficiency in high-tech SMEs is significantly enhanced by collaboration, formal management structure and training; and that in medium- and low-tech SMEs is significantly associated with managerial ownership, incentive schemes and organisational flexibility.management characteristics, collaboration, innovative efficiency

Investigating the role of cytochrome P450 enzymes in triazole drug efficacy and toxicity in whole organism zebrafish model

Invasive fungal infections account for nearly 1.5 million deaths a year and therefore are considered one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The first line of therapy towards these infections are antifungal drugs in the triazole class such as voriconazole, posaconazole, itraconazole, and isavuconazole. However, these antifungal drug therapies fail in a large number of patients and can produce toxic side effects, therefore increasing the risk of mortality worldwide. While prior research has demonstrated the efficacy of these drugs in mitigating fungal growth in vitro, it is unclear why these drugs fail to protect patients infected with fungal pathogens. Cytochrome P450 (CYP-P450) enzymes are involved in the metabolism of triazole antifungal drugs. Particularly, CYP3A4 and CYP1A are responsible for a large majority of triazole drug metabolism in the human body. I hypothesized that CYP3A4 and CYP1A proteins mediate triazole drug efficacy and toxicity in a whole organism. I utilized a larval zebrafish model to study how these genes affect the efficacy and toxicity of triazole drug treatments in vivo. I identified orthologs of the human CYP3A4 and CYP1A genes in zebrafish using the Zebrafish Information Network (ZFIN): cyp3c1 and cyp1a, respectively. I first tested if these genes are expressed in zebrafish larvae by performing RT-PCR of RNA extracted from zebrafish larvae. I find that both cyp3c1 and cyp1a are expressed in the larvae at 2-, 3-, and 5-days post fertilization. To determine the effects of antifungal drug treatment on the expression of these genes, I treated zebrafish larvae with four antifungal drugs at 2 days post fertilization: voriconazole, posaconazole, itraconazole, and isavuconazole. The most notable difference was the significant upregulation of expression in the cyp3c1 gene at one day post treatment with isavuconazole. However, there was a significant upregulation of this gene’s expression at 2 days post treatment with itraconazole. To determine how this could impact the drug toxicity of the triazole antifungal drugs, CRISPR-Cas9 system was utilized to mutate the cyp3c1gene. To do so, I generated two gRNAs to target this gene as well as forward and reverse primers to check that the gRNAs induce double strand breaks at the targeted regions of the gene. An injection mixture containing both gRNAs for the genes as well as Cas9 protein was injected into the zebrafish embryos at the one cell stage. At two days post injection the larvae were treated with the four drugs and survival of the larvae was tracked. The findings thus far demonstrate that the CYP3A4 homolog in zebrafish, cyp3c1, protects against isavuconazole drug toxicity in vivo. In the future we will infect cyp3c1 mutant larvae with Aspergillus fumigatus and treat infected larvae with triazole drugs to determine the role of cyp3c1 in drug efficacy against a fungal infection

Do takeovers create value? A residual income approach on UK data

This paper develops and empirically tests a new methodology for evaluating the financial performance of takeovers. The existing accounting and event study methodologies do not adequately address the key issue of whether takeovers are a positive net present value investment for the acquiring company. Our methodology attempts this by employing the residual income approach to valuation, and comparing the present value of the acquirer's future earnings before the acquisition, with those that actually result following takeover. In contrast to existing methodologies, we explicitly take account of the cost of the acquisition, the acquirers cost of capital, and the earnings which are created beyond the sample period. The methodology is used for evaluating a comprehensive sample of U.K. acquisitions completed during 1985-96. Using the traditional accounting method, we find that acquisitions result in a significant improvement in profitability. However, the residual income approach reveals that on average, acquisitions destroy roughly 30 percent of the acquirer's pre-acquisition value.takeovers; valuation; accounting studies; event studies; residual income.

Killing Matters: Canadian War Remembrance and the Ghosts of Ortona

This dissertation combines critical discourse analysis with person-centred ethnography to examine the dissonant relationships between Canadian war veterans' narratives and the national discourse of Canadian war remembrance. The dissertation analyses Canadian war remembrance as a ritualized discourse (named Remembrance) that is produced in commemorative rituals, symbols, poetry, monuments, pilgrimages, artwork, history-writing, political speeches, government documents, media reports, and the design of the Canadian War Museum. This Remembrance discourse foregrounds and valorizes the suffering of soldiers and makes the soldier's act of dying the central issue of war. In doing so, Remembrance suppresses the significance of the soldier's act of killing and attributes this orientational framework to veterans themselves, as if it is consistent with their experiences. The dissertation problematizes this Remembrance framing of war through an analysis of WWII veterans' narratives drawn from ethnographic fieldwork that was conducted in western Canada with 23 veterans of the WWII battle of Ortona, Italy. The fieldwork consisted of life-story interviews that focused on veterans' combat experiences, supplemented by archival research and a study of the Ortona Christmas reconciliation dinner with former enemy soldiers. Through psychoanalytically-informed discourse analysis, the narratives are interpreted in terms of hidden meanings and trauma signals associated with the issue of killing. The analysis shows that many of these veterans were strongly affected by killing even when they did not know if they had killed and even though most of them tried to suppress their dissonant affects. In sum, these Ortona veterans' narratives constitute dissonant acts of remembrance that unsettle the limited moral frame within which Canadians imagine war