The purpose of this study is to take a look at the mergers and acquisitions taken place over the last decade and how they were reported in various journals and publications. Study will investigate whether there is a pattern in reporting favoring certain industries and regions and manipulating facts to create a favorable opinion among stakeholders and general public

1. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 1
A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions and
its Impact on the Wider Society
Charm Rammandala
California Intercontinental University

2. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 2
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to take an in-depth look at the mergers and acquisitions taken place
over the last decade and how they were reported in various journals and publications. Study will
investigate whether there is a pattern in reporting favoring certain industries and regions and
manipulating facts to create a favorable opinion among stakeholders and general public

3. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 3
A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions
and its Impact on the Wider Society
Primary goal of a firm is stay ahead of the competition in order to maximize the shareholders’
wealth. There are various strategies to stay ahead of the competition and some of them includes,
having new innovations, differentiate products and services from competitors and using price
leadership strategy. In order to maintain the market dominance using one or more strategies
mentioned above, working in partnership or buying off other companies being a major
management strategy since the 18th
century (Elikplimi 2013)
Main reasons for M&A
Growth of the company is one of the important discussion point in many boardrooms and
time is one the important factor when deciding the growth strategy. It is inevitably take
considerable time and resources for companies to be expert on every aspect of the supply chain
and other related technological fields and in most often does not have the sufficient expertise in
handling the all areas (Hasan 2014)
Competition is another major concern for firms to encounter while deciding the growth
strategy. Regardless of the law’s related to copyright and patents, companies find ways to come
up with similar products and compete for the market share. This drives research and
development costs up and force firms to reduce selling price, resulting in lower profit margins.
In order to overcome these challenges, one of the solution was to either merge or completely
take over a company management thinks adding value to the firm. This could be a firm which
makes complimentary goods, backwards integration, to have a control over supply chain which
would ensure uninterrupted supply of parts and other materials needed for production output or

4. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 4
forward integration to take control of the front end of the business to ensure how the products
and services of the company presented to the valued customers (Hasan 2014)
History of M&A
Mergers and acquisitions have a long history and according to the records it goes back to
1897 where early mergers and acquisition taken place to ensure the dominant company has
monopoly of the market. These mergers called as horizontal mergers and railroads, electricity
companies were the most notable industries engaged in them. At the time no rules and
regulations were in place and subsequently in 1903 supreme court passes Sherman law to prevent
anti-competitive activities (Achin 2015)
Over the last hundred years, mergers and acquisitions taken place in different sizes and
shapes. After the initial phase in 1897 to 1904, second phase began in 1915 with conglomerate
and horizontal acquisitions of companies to dominate the market through oligopolies. Companies
who made steel, produced food and petroleum products were the active companies who were
engaged in the mergers and acquisitions. With the stock market crash in 1929, the second phase
of mergers came to an end (Elikplimi 2013)
Third wave of mergers were short lived and it lasted between 1965 to 1969. Due to the high
stock prices and high interest rates, companies were engaged in buying other potential companies
to improve the bottom line through share prices. However, government intervene and split the
conglomerates as they were highly inefficient. Primary reason was to increase revenue through
increased stock price hence companies did not ran the operations efficiently. This had an adverse
effect on the performances of each company (Joshua 2012)

5. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 5
Forth wave of mergers recorded between 1981 to 1989. During this period prominent
difference was larger companies of oil and gas industries, Airline industries and pharmaceutical
industries buying each other out to dominate the market and control the prices. One of the
important development of this phase was the increasing mergers and acquisitions by foreign
companies. This phase prompt the government to introduce anti-takeover laws and financial
institution reforms (Elikplimi 2013)
Currently we are in the fifth phase of mergers and acquisitions and due to the effects of
globalization, majority of the activities are multinational and involved both horizontal and
vertical mergers. Most of the deals involved large sum of price tags and effects of the deals felt
throughout the world (Hasan 2014)
Effects of mergers and acquisitions in contemporary world
While discussing about mergers and acquisitions in 2015, Achim in his article titled “Trends
in recent Mergers and Acquisitions” mention there are two prominent categories. First category
is focusing on the benefits of the merger and acquisition and how it’s going to stimulate the
economy and maximize the shareholders’ value. All most all the countries in develop world rely
on the stock market performance for the financial security and any significant impact to the share
prices would create a significant problem to the pension funds and job market activities (Barbour
2016)
The second category of reporting predominately focus on the negative impact of the mergers
and acquisitions. These authors examine how the big companies are getting even bigger and
driving the prices up by reducing or eliminating the competition. The negative effects of the
acquisitions are somewhat easier for general public to understand as most of the products and

6. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 6
services are often produced by few companies. This inevitably make them feel acquisitions are
bad for the society (Achin 2015)
As a result of extensive mergers and acquisitions US aerospace dominated by four large
companies, namely American, United, Delta & Southwest airlines. It is noted that recent dip in
oil price did not reduce the ticket prices in the same margins as the competition among four big
airlines are not significant. Below graph shows how the airline industry revenue increased during
the period of 2003 to 2015.
Graph 1 (US Department of Statistics)
Similar trend is emerging in the media as well as with 97% penetration to US households,
dominant networks are ABC, NBA, CBC & Fox network. Essentially these big companies by
acquiring all emerging and notable companies, reducing the competition and controlling the
market share (Hasan 2014)

7. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 7
How the mergers are reported?
Achim has looked in to how the mergers and acquisitions are reported over the past decade
and it was noted majority of the mergers are primarily reported on various journals as a study.
Only the major acquisitions with large financial transactions or where jobs were at risk got the
national coverage (Achin 2016)
below chart highlights 2015 mergers and acquisition reports published according to the main
subject areas.
Graph 2 (Mintel)
According to the Mergermarket, in 2015 there were 9962 M&A activities involving US$2.3
trillion. This shows the amount of activities across the industries. It is important to note that real
impact of large amount of acquisitions are not reported in a manner where public has easy
access. Achim explains that general public without having a sufficient knowledge how and
where to look for information would face difficulty accessing the information (Barbour 2016)

8. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 8
Graph 3 (US Department of Statistics)
Looking at the large number of acquisitions occur daily basis, it is understandable that each
event dont get reported. However, all print and other media are the first to report any buy out
which has national interest. Some of the examples are recent deal between Walmart & Jet.com,
Shell and BG group, Charter & Time warner cable. These will have a notable impact to the share
prices and general public over the next years (Achin 2015)
According to Achin, financial journalists are generally the first to bring the news on mergers
and acquisitions to the public. They will scrutinize the deal in terms of its impact to the
economy, job market and the share price. Consumer groups looks in to the impact of competition
and prices while scholars study the reasons and how the shareholder wealth maximized through
the acquisitions (Achin 2015)

9. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 9
Summery
Mergers and acquisitions have become a main stream business strategy among companies to
improve the bottom line. 2015 was a record setting year in-terms of acquisitions as close to
10,000 deals taken place valuing $2.3 trillion. It is important to follow-up the mergers and
acquisition activities and report them objectively to ensure all relevant stakeholders are informed
and aware of the consequences. This is particularly important when it comes to regulating and
preventing anti-competitive mergers and acquisitions.

10. A Detailed Study to Understand the Recent Trends in Reporting Mergers and Acquisitions 10
References
Achim, S (2015). Recent trends in study of mergers and acquisitions. Journal of financial
management. Retrieved from gala virtual reference library http:/gale. Galegroup.com
(08/17/2016)
Barbour, T (2016). Mergers and acquisitions help Alaska companies: expanding markets and
enhancing services. Journal of Management. Retrieved from gala virtual reference library
http:/gale. Galegroup.com (08/18/2016)
Joshua, A (2012). Cambashi to Present Webinar on Mergers and Acquisitions in Engineering
Software Market.. Journal of International Business Studies. Retrieved from gala virtual
reference library http:/gale. Galegroup.com (08/18/2016)
Elikplimi, N (2013). Acquisitions. Journal of Practice and Theory. Retrieved from gala virtual
reference library http:/gale. Galegroup.com (08/16/2016)
Hasan, I (2014). Banking deregulation, consolidation and corporate cash holdings: US evidence.
Journal of banking and Finance Retrieved from gala virtual reference library http:/gale.
Galegroup.com (08/17/2016)