We investigate the effects of securities regulation, enacted by the European Union (EU) (namely, the Transparency Directive – TPD) to improve the quality of financial reporting and disclosure, on the information environment around stock-financed acquisition announcements. EU directives comprised in the Financial Services Action Plan aim to improve the information quality that flows to investors, which may help reduce the adverse selection discount when stock is used as the method of payment in Mergers and Acquisitions (M&As). We use a difference-in-differences methodology and document a significant increase in announcement returns of stock-paid acquisitions by European acquirers after the change in regulation. We also find that this result accrues essentially to companies with better firm-specific information quality and companies domiciled in EU countries with better institutional quality and shareholder protection. Our results highlight how the impact of the same regulation may differ depending on country and firm-level attributes associated with the information environment.

我们调查了欧盟 (EU) 为提高财务报告和披露质量而颁布的证券监管对股票融资收购公告周围信息环境的影响。金融服务行动计划中包含的欧盟指令旨在提高流向投资者的信息质量，这可能有助于减少在并购 (M&A) 中使用股票作为支付方式时的逆向选择折扣。我们使用差异中的差异方法并记录了欧洲收购方在监管变更后股票支付收购的公告回报显着增加。我们还发现，这一结果主要适用于具有更好的公司特定信息质量的公司和在欧盟国家注册的具有更好制度质量和股东保护的公司。我们的结果强调了相同法规的影响可能因与信息环境相关的国家和公司级别属性而异。