This course examines the activity of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&As) highlighting the importance of these corporate actions for the firms involved.

The students after the successful completion of the course should have developed knowledge of the :

• Types of corporate transformations (mergers, acquisitions, divestments) and the reasons/motives explaining the activity of M&As both domestically (in Greece) and at a global level.
• Various methods of finding the efficiency of M&As which are internationally applied by academic empirical research (e.g event studies –abnormal returns methodology, adjusted operational return, e.tc.) and the results of these studies with respect to the magnitude and their distribution of these returns among the firms involved in the relevant deals, as well as their determinants.
• Various acquisition strategies and defence tactics by the firms involved in M&As deals.
• Various methods of companies’ valuation which are internationally applied in cases of M&As, with a special reference on financial firms’ valuation techniques and the peculiarities of the banking sector.
• Estimation and the importance of synergies’ creation for the added value of transactions.
• Various special issues on M&As related with the mode of payment (pure cash vs. pure exchange of shares), the International Financial Reporting Standard (I.F.R.S.) 3 and the existing legal framework in Greece.

Also, it is expected that students will attain basic skills with respect to :

• learning how to apply the event-study methodology in estimating the abnormal returns (by the use of regression analysis, other econometric models and the necessary tests of statistical significance), in order to examine the impact of the public announcement of events, such as M&As, on shareholders’ wealth
• reading of scientific articles published in high quality international academic journals which are the result of theoretical and empirical research, as well as research articles from high quality practitioners in relevant issues of successful M&As strategies
• reading and understanding of the valuation reports by well known international investment houses, aiming to get acquainted with such reports, so that the students should be able to write similar ones
• collection of primary data and information from companies and subsequent analysis in order to generate similar valuation reports for companies

Furthermore, it is expected that the students, in order to respond to the cognitive requirements of the course, should develop at an elementary level the abilities of: – empirical research

• strategic way of thinking
• team work
• time management and
• professionalism regarding their obligations (e.g. keeping deadlines, efficient completion of a project and presentation, e.tc.)