Abstract
In this paper, we investigate whether material asset reorganizations (MARs), a special form of merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions, can affect the acquirers’ cost of debt financing. Further, we examine the effect of acquiring firms’ accounting information quality on the cost of debt and on the association between MARs and debt costs. We predict that compared to conventional M&As, large-scale acquisitions through MARs can generate a much greater influx of assets from target firms. This raises the acquirers’ asset collateral and thus reduces the cost of debt. Because the quality of accounting information is a key factor affecting the cost of debt, we suggest that it has a spillover effect on the debt-cost effect of MARs. Using M&A transactions by listed companies in the Chinese A-share market from 2008 to 2014 as our sample, we find that MARs are associated with a higher asset collateral and lower ex post cost of debt than conventional M&As. Furthermore, we show that the acquiring firms’ accounting information quality has a significant negative effect on debt costs, and the negative association between MARs and the cost of debt is more pronounced when accounting information quality is higher.
1. Introduction
Merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions are a widely discussed issue in research on capital markets. Earlier academic research mainly focuses on the motivation for conducting M&As, including obtaining business synergies, consolidating market position, and building a ‘‘commercial empire” (Jensen and Ruback, 1983; Mullin, 1995; Martynova and Renneboog, 2006). The recent literature focuses on whether M&A transactions create wealth value in stock markets, and explore the determinants of this value-creation (Zhang, 2003; Martynova and Renneboog, 2011; Cai and Sevilir, 2012; Tian et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2013a; Kravet, 2014; Mateev, 2017). However, there is little research on the economic consequences of M&As in debt markets. In this paper, we investigate whether and how material asset reorganizations (MARs),1 a special form of M&A transactions, can affect acquirers’ ex post debt financing costs.
6. Conclusion
In this paper, we investigate whether MARs (as a special form of M&A transaction) are related to acquiring firms’ debt financing costs. Using a sample of listed companies’ M&A transactions in the Chinese A-share market, we find that MAR implementation can enable the acquirers to obtain a massive inflow of assets from target firms and gain significant asset collateral, and this can decrease the acquirers’ debt financing costs. Our results help to reveal the economic consequences of M&A transactions and enrich the current literature on debt financing. This paper also examines the role of accounting information quality in the M&A market. We show that acquiring firms’ accounting information quality has a significant negative effect on their debt financing costs. This result builds on studies that find a negative relationship between accounting information quality and debt costs. In addition, we find that the effect of MARs on the ex post cost of debt financing is stronger for acquiring firms that have higher quality accounting information. This result indicates the spillover effect of accounting information quality in the M&A setting, and helps to reveal the reinforcing mechanism of the MARs on debt cost.
