企业跨国并购障碍分析 - 图文(10)

Buying firms outside a company’s current primary lines of business is called diversification, and is typically justified in one of two ways. Diversification may create financial synergy that reduces the cost of capital, or it may allow a firm to shift its core product lines or markets into ones that have higher growth prospects, even

19

ones that are unrelated to the firm’s current products or markets. The extent to which diversification is unrelated to an acquirer’s current lines of business can have significant implications for how effective management is in operating the combined firms.

A firm facing slower growth in its current markets may be able to accelerate growth through related diversification by selling its current products in new markets that are somewhat unfamiliar and, therefore, mor risky. Such was the case when pharmaceutical giant Johnson &Johnson announced its ultimately unsuccessful takeover attempt of Guidant Corporation in late 2004. J&J was seeking an entry point for its medical devices business in the fast-growing market for implantable devices, in which it did not then participate. A firm may attempt to achieve higher growth rates by developing or acquiring new products with which it is relatively unfamiliar and then selling them in familiar and less risky current markets. Retailer JCPenney’s acquisition of the Eckerd Drugstore chain or J&J’s $16 billion acquisition of Pfizer’s consumer health care products line in 2006 are two examples of related diversification. In each instance, the firm assumed additional risk, but less so than unrelated diversification if it had developed new products for sale in new markets. There is considerable evidence that investors do not benefit from unrelated diversification.

Firms that operate in a number of largely unrelated industries, such as General Electric, are called conglomerates. The share prices of conglomerates often trade at a discount—as much as 10 to 15 percent—compared to shares of focused firms or to their value were they broken up. This discount is called the conglomerate discount or diversification discount. Investors often perceive companies diversified in unrelated areas (i.e., those in different standard industrial classifications) as riskier because management has difficulty understanding these companies and often fails to provide full funding for the most attractive investment opportunities.Moreover, outside investors may have a difficult time understanding how to value the various parts of highly diversified businesses.Researchers differ on whether the conglomerate discount is overstated.

Still, although the evidence suggests that firms pursuing a more focused corporate strategy are likely to perform best, there are always exceptions. Strategic Realignment

The strategic realignment theory suggests that firms use M&As to make rapid adjustments to changes in their external environments. Although change can come

20

from many different sources, this theory considers only changes in the regulatory environment and technological innovation—two factors that, over the past 20 years, have been major forces in creating new opportunities for growth, and threatening, or making obsolete, firms’ primary lines of business. Regulatory Change

Those industries that have been subject to significant deregulation in recent years—financial services, health care, utilities, media, telecommunications, defense—have been at the center of M&A activity because deregulation breaks down artificial barriers and stimulates competition. During the first half of the 1990s, for instance, the U.S. Department of Defense actively encouraged consolidation of the nation’s major defense contractors to improve their overall operating efficiency.

Utilities now required in some states to sell power to competitors that can resell the power in the utility’s own marketplace respond with M&As to achieve greater operating efficiency. Commercial banks that have moved beyond their historical role of accepting deposits and g ranting loans are merging with securities firms and insurance companies thanks to the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, which repealed legislation dating back to the Great Depression.The Citicorp–Travelers merger a year earlier anticipated this change, and it is probable that their representatives were lobbying for the new legislation. The final chapter has yet t o be written: this trend toward huge financial services companies may yet be stymied by new regulation passed in 2010 in response to excessive risk taking.

The telecommunications industry offers a striking illustration. Historically, local and long-distance phone companies were not allowed t o compete against each other, and cable companies were essentially monopolies. Since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, local and long-distance companies are actively encouraged to compete in each other’s markets, and cable companies are offering both Internet access and local telephone service. When a federal appeals court in 2002 struck down a Federal Communications Commission regulation prohibiting a company from owning a cable television system and a broadcast TV station in the same city, and threw out the rule that barred a company from owning TV stations that reach more than 35 percent of U.S.households, it encouraged new combinations among the largest media companies or purchases of smaller broadcasters. Technological Change

Technological advances create new products and industries. The development of

21

the airplane created the passenger airline, avionics, and satellite industries. The emergence of satellite delivery of cable networks t o regional and local stations ignited explosive growth in the cable industry. Today, with the expansion of broadband technology, we are witnessing the convergence of voice, data, and video tech …… 此处隐藏：4149字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……