Motives for Cross Border Mergers and Acquisitions: Perspective of UK Firms

Abstract

This paper considers the strategic motivation for cross border mergers and acquisitions (CBM&As) for a sample of UK firms acquiring North American and European firms. The leading set of motives lends support to the theories of strategic positioning and the resource based view. The highest ranked strategic motives for CBM&As are to enable presence in new markets, to enable faster entry to market, to facilitate international expansion, gain new capabilities and gain strategic assets. Hypotheses are tested on the relationship between the relative importance of individual strategic motives and a number of characteristics of the sample. In general findings show that there is little variation in the relative importance of the strategic motives across the characteristics of the sample.

Keywords: Cross border acquisitions, Motives