This paper examines how the target's customer concentration affects merger performance. We find that the acquirer purchasing a customer-concentrated firm experiences significantly lower stock market returns and worse long-run operating performance. The effect is more pronounced when customers face lower switching costs or the target undertakes a higher level of relationship-specific investments, exhibits higher cash volatility, or is acquired by a less well-known company. Further analysis shows that the negative association is mainly driven by corporate customers, while relatively safe government customers moderate the effect. We also find that shared major customers, overconfident CEOs, and poor corporate governance are more likely to increase the likelihood of customer-concentrated acquisitions. Overall, our findings suggest that higher customer concentration leads to lower value creation in mergers.

本文研究了目标客户的客户集中度如何影响合并绩效。我们发现，收购以客户为中心的公司的收购方经历了显着降低的股票市场回报和更差的长期经营业绩。当客户面临较低的转换成本或目标公司进行更高水平的特定关系投资、表现出更高的现金波动性或被一家不太知名的公司收购时，这种影响更为明显。进一步分析表明，负面关联主要由企业客户驱动，而相对安全的政府客户则缓和了影响。我们还发现，共享的主要客户、过度自信的 CEO 和贫穷的公司治理更有可能增加以客户为中心的收购的可能性。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，客户集中度越高，合并中的价值创造就越低。