The Role of Bank Advisors in Mergers and Acquisitions

50 Pages Posted: 3 Nov 2008

See all articles by Linda Allen

Linda Allen

City University of New York, Baruch College - Zicklin School of Business - Department of Economics and Finance

Julapa Jagtiani

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Stavros Peristiani

Federal Reserve Bank of New York--Retired

Anthony Saunders

New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business

Multiple version iconThere are 4 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 2001

Abstract

This paper looks at the role of commercial banks and investment banks as financial advisor's. Unlike some areas of investment banking, commercial banks have always been allowed to compete directly with traditional investment banks in this area. In their role as lenders and advisor's, banks can be viewed as serving a certification function. However, banks acting as both lenders and advisor's face a potential conflict of interest that may mitigate or offset any certification effect. Overall, we find evidence of the certification effect for target firms, butconflicts of interest for acquirers. In particular, the target earns higher abnormal returns when the target s own bank certifies the (more information ally opaque) target s value to the acquirer. In contrast, we find no certification role for acquirers. This may be due to two reasons. First, certification plays less of a role foracquirers because it is the target firm that must be priced in a merger. Second, acquirerspredominantly utilize commercial bank advisor's in order to obtain access to bank loans that may be used to finance the post-merger transition period. Thus, we find that acquirers tend to choose their own banks (those with prior lending relationships to the acquirer) as advisors in mergers.However, this choice weakens any certification effect and creates a potential conflict of interest because the acquirer s advisor negotiates the terms of both the merger transaction and future loan commitments. Moreover, the advisor s merger advice may be distorted by considerations related to the bank s credit exposure resulting from both past and future lending activity. The market prices these conflicts of interest; we find significantly negative abnormal returns for bank advisor's when they advise their own loan customers in acquiring other firms.

Keywords: Relationship banking, investment bank advisors, commercial bank advisors, commercial bank advisors, conflict of interest effect, mergers, acquisitions

Suggested Citation

Allen, Linda and Jagtiani, Julapa A. and Peristiani, Stavros and Saunders, Anthony, The Role of Bank Advisors in Mergers and Acquisitions (December 2001). NYU Working Paper No. FIN-01-058, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1294603

Linda Allen

City University of New York, Baruch College - Zicklin School of Business - Department of Economics and Finance ( email )

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New York, NY 10010
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HOME PAGE: http://stern.nyu.edu/~lallen

Julapa A. Jagtiani

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia ( email )

Ten Independence Mall
Philadelphia, PA 19106-1574
United States

Stavros Peristiani

Federal Reserve Bank of New York--Retired ( email )

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Apartment 1C
Bronx, NY New York 10463
United States
718-796-5190 (Phone)

Anthony Saunders

New York University - Leonard N. Stern School of Business ( email )

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9-190, MEC
New York, NY 10012-1126
United States
212-998-0711 (Phone)
212-995-4220 (Fax)

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