Mergers and Merger Policy

This book is a collection of essays by leading policy-makers and academics confronting the most important questions about the merger phenomenon. This issue has been receiving a great deal of public attention following a series of huge and contested takeover bids. At the same time the British merger policy has been the subject of government review. Does the merger process serve as a crucial check on management efficiency, or is it the result of too little control or too much management discretion? Do shareholders and consumers gain or lose from mergers? Is the effect of mergers on competition the only public concern, and how anyway is competition to be assessed in an economy increasingly dominated by foreign imports? Can policy-makers learn from abroad, or are the current institutions and procedures the best available? The contributions to this volume aim to show how such questions can be answered.Table of ContentThe impact of the merger, Alan Hughes; take-over activity in the United Kingdom, Mervyn A.King; the market for corporate control - the divestment option, Mike Wright et al; mergers, take-overs and the enforcement of profit maximization, Dieter R.Helm; shareholder wealth effects of UK take- overs - implications for merger policy, Julian R.Franks and Robert S.Harris; the empirical analysis of market structure and performance, James A.Fairburn and Paul A.Geroski; the evolution of merger policy in Britain, James A.Fairburn; merger policy in the US, George A. Hay and Rod J.Nydam; merger policy - current policy concerns, Sir Gordon Borrie; merger policy - certainty or lottery, John Swift, QC; do we need a merger policy, Kenneth D.George; myths and merger policy, Stephen C.Littlechild. Appendix: the Commission's merger reports.