How Did the Asian Stock Markets React to Bank Mergers After the 1997 Financial Crisis?

The objective of this paper is to empirically assess the stock market reaction to the announcement of bank mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in eight East Asian countries over the 1997–2003 period. M&As are classified according to the status of entity, the time period of the deal and the maturity of the banking system. A bivariate GARCH model is used to estimate abnormal returns taking beta conditional variability into account. We find that the market reacted negatively to M&As during the crisis period (1997–2000) and also in the less mature banking systems (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand).