Fusions et acquisitions dans l'industrie europeene

In recent years, both the number and the size of mergers and takeovers have risen considerably in European countries. What are their objectives ? What are their effects on the firms themselves, on growth and on employment ? This paper attempts to answer such questions, to the best of our ability, given that relevant data are not always readily available. First, a quantitative picture of recent developments is provided, which serves to emphasize the specificity of currently observed moves, relative to what had happened earlier. The most commonly invoked motives for mergers and takeovers are then reviewed. Such moves would serve to displace inefficient management, for the benefit of shareholders, and to achieve economies of scale, most notably with respect to R & D. A number of case studies and a short survey of the existing literature suggest that the new organisation resulting from the merger is not always regarded by financial markets as potentially more profitable than the existing firms ; that mergers may be induced by defensive motives, such as the desire to maintain a dominant position in a market, in the prospect of enhanced competition — rather than to increase productivity ; that the management of buying firms does not always perform better than that of the targets, etc. Since the results of these general studies do not allow us to reach any definite conclusion in favour of either the optimistic or the pessimistic views with respect to the overall consequences of mergers and takeovers, we turn to some specific industries (steel and chemicals) and to the particular case of a new memberstate of the European Community, namely Spain. The complexity of industrial organisations and that of market structures are such as to prevent the development of a general theory of mergers and takeovers