The central proposition of this paper is to assess the performance of cross-border acquisitions made by Multilatinas. Applying the event study method to a sample of 607 announcements of acquisitions during the period 1989-2011 by 182 Multilatinas from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, we conclude that: (a) on average, these announcements have a neutral impact on the short-term returns to acquiring companies' shareholders; (b) cross-sectional analysis reveals that relative size of the deals have a negative and significant effect on investors' reactions and; (c) unlike the institutional distance between home and host countries, cultural distance matters, since it has a negative and significant effect on the perceptions that investors have regarding the expected economic impact of acquirers' cross-border merger and acquisition (M&A) decisions. Inasmuch as the market rationality assumption that underlies the event study method has been questioned, future research lines are proposed in order to search for alternative long-term performance constructs concerning M&A processes in general that can: (a) shed light on the reality of value creation (and destruction) from cross-border acquisitions made by Multilatinas; and (b) contribute to strategy, international business and M&A theories and practice.

Cross-border acquisitions (CBAs) have extensively been used by Multilatinas as a preferred entry mode in foreign markets, quickly providing access to resources, competencies and local intelligence without the burden of starting up a greenfield investment and bearing its associated risk to face the liability of foreignness. Using fixed-effects, generalized least square (FEGLS) regressions applied on a panel data sample of 602 CBA deals announced during the 1989-2011 period by 182 Multilatinas competing in 74 industries and headquartered in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela, the impact of cultural and psychic distances (as perceived by investors) on the performance of these CBA deals (measured by acquirers' shareholders' short term announcement returns) was evaluated. Key emerging conclusions are that: a) the national cultural distance composite index, based on Hofstede's four dimensions seems to better predict investors' reaction to CBA announcements in comparison with the other "psychic" distance concepts, such as the administrative and geographical distances between home and host countries; b) investors' perceptions regarding the cultural dissimilarities between these countries are factored in their response as an anticipation of the expected difficulties that acquiring firms' will have during the post-merger integration process, as predicted by the several theoretical streams that focus on the role of culture in M&A; c) due to the positive and significant moderating effect of the uncertainty avoidance dimension, investors seem also to perceive that acquirers from home countries characterized by high uncertainty avoidance scores will be able to better handle the challenges that they will face in the post-merger integration stage, to the extent that these firms, as recognized in the cross-cultural research literature, have been associated with a preference for organizational rules and procedures that increase the chances of a successful completion of the merger or acquisition deal; d) although its role is recognized in the crosscultural literature, power distance levels have no significant moderating effect on the cultural distance-M&A performance relationship. The models are robust to varying lengths of event windows and to alternative measurements of cultural distance, such as those based on the framework developed by the GLOBE project (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004) and on the country cultural cluster maps proposed by Ronen and Shenkar (2013). Limitations of this study are pointed out and future research directions are suggested in order to advance our knowledge and understanding of the antecedents of the performance of the cross-border acquisitions made by Multilatinas.