Measuring Takeover Premiums in Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions: Insights from Turkey

We investigate whether the merger announcement dates provided in a popular mergers and acquisitions (M&A) database, SDC, serve as accurate event dates for estimating the wealth effects of mergers on target firms located in Turkey. We find that 74 percent of SDC’s merger announcement dates are preceded by merger-related events such as merger rumors, target firms’ search for potential acquirers, and early-stage merger negotiation announcements. Target cumulative abnormal return (CAR) estimates around these early dates are almost twice as large as the CAR estimates around SDC’s merger announcement dates. We argue that our findings have implications for the recently flourishing cross-border M&A literature.