The study examines financial and transaction characteristics that influence mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in U.S. agribusinesses. During the M&A private phase, we model the likelihood of firms becoming bidders or targets as a function of firms' past financial performance. During the M&A public phase, the likelihood of bidders becoming acquirers is modeled as a function of firms' past financial performance and M&A transaction characteristics. The results for the subset of bidders in the M&A private phase suggest that the likelihood of a firm becoming a bidder is positively correlated with the bidder's firm size 1 year before the M&A announcement. In contrast, the likelihood of a firm becoming a bidder is negatively associated with bidder's leverage, cash level, and very low market valuations. For the subset of targeted firms, the likelihood of firms being targeted is positively associated with the firm's leverage and negatively related with its profitability. Our results for the M&A public phase model show that firm experience in the M&A market is positively associated with the likelihood of acquisition completion. In addition, relative to nonhorizontal transactions, horizontal mergers tend to be more difficult to complete. [EconLit Citations: G34, M2].

中文翻译：

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1990-2017 年美国农业综合企业的并购

该研究考察了影响美国农业综合企业并购 (M&A) 的财务和交易特征。在并购私有阶段，我们将公司成为投标人或目标的可能性建模为公司过去财务业绩的函数。在并购公开阶段，投标人成为收购者的可能性被建模为公司过去财务业绩和并购交易特征的函数。并购私有阶段投标人子集的结果表明，公司成为投标人的可能性与并购公告前 1 年投标人的公司规模呈正相关。相比之下，公司成为投标人的可能性与投标人的杠杆、现金水平和极低的市场估值呈负相关。对于目标公司的子集，公司成为目标的可能性与公司的杠杆率呈正相关，与其盈利能力呈负相关。我们对并购公开阶段模型的结果表明，公司在并购市场的经验与收购完成的可能性呈正相关。此外，相对于非横向交易，横向并购往往更难完成。[EconLit 引文：G34，M2]。横向合并往往更难完成。[EconLit 引文：G34，M2]。横向合并往往更难完成。[EconLit 引文：G34，M2]。