Mergers and Acquisitions Activity of Initial Public Offering Firms on Borsa Istanbul

Abstract

This paper studies the mergers and acquisitions (M&As) activity of initial public offering (IPO) firms on Borsa Istanbul (BIST) that went public between 1990-2014. We find that among the 398 firms that went public 87 firms acquired other firms while 104 firms were targeted by other firms within the first five years after their IPOs. For firms that have been involved in an M&A activity, the aggregate deal volume corresponds to 16% of their market size for acquiring IPO firms, and 29% of their market size for targeted IPO firms. On average, while these IPO firms acquired 2.1 firms within five years, they were targeted by 1.7 firms. As a result, firms that convert to public ownership on BIST might participate as acquiring firms or as target firms in the subsequent M&A processes in the first five years after their IPO. Our findings indicate that firms go public on BIST mainly to provide an exit opportunity for their existing shareholders, and they accomplish this i) through the sale of existing shares to the general public in an IPO or ii) through the sale of existing shares to the acquiring firms in a post-IPO M&A. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]