ICMA Centre PhD student Christos F. Mavrovitis will be presenting a working paper in Portugal this June. Firstly, Mr. Mavrovitis will be attending the 2011 FMA Annual European Meeting in Porto on June 8 before travelling to Braga for the 2011 EFMA Annual Meeting from June 22.

He will be presenting the working paper ?How Have M&As Changed? Evidence from the Sixth Merger Wave?', which he has co-authored with ICMA Centre colleague Dr. George Alexandridis and Nickolaos G. Travlos.

Christos' MSc dissertation focused on Mergers and Acquisitions and the title of his thesis was ?M&As: A Global Study'. This current paper is a contributing factor in his continuation of his doctoral research in the area of Mergers and Acquisitions at the ICMA Centre.

Abstract for How Have M&As Changed? Evidence from the Sixth Merger Wave?

We examine the characteristics of the sixth merger wave that started in 2003 and came to an end approximately in mid-2007. The drivers of this wave lie primarily in the availability of abundant liquidity, in line with neoclassical explanations of merger waves. Acquirers were less overvalued relative to targets and merger proposals comprised higher cash elements. Moreover, the market for corporate control was less competitive, acquirers were less acquisitive, managers displayed less over-optimism and offers involved significantly lower premiums, indicating more cautious and rational acquisition decisions. Strikingly however, deals destroyed at least as much value for acquiring shareholders as in the 1990s.

The paper is available from ssrn.