In this study, we explore the conditions under which acquirers earn abnormal returns. We provide an empirical test of Barney and Chatterjee's arguments by examining the role of the respective resource contribution of the target and the acquirer. Combining an event study with a survey of postacquisition resource transfer on a sample of 101 horizontal acquisitions, we find that acquirers do not earn abnormal returns when they only receive resources from the target. In this case, it is likely that multiple bidders, which could have equally captured these resources, competed away all the abnormal returns from the successful bidder. In contrast, we find that acquirers can expect to earn abnormal returns when they transfer their own resources to the target. Overall, we find that value creation does not ensure value capture for the acquirer.Many studies in strategy and finance have shown that acquisitions are a mixed blessing for the shareholders of acquiring firms, even when they create synergies. Empirical evidence suggests that average returns to successful bidders are null, while the synergistic benefits of acquisitions usually accrue to the shareholders of targets-a return of +30 percent on average (Jensen and Ruback, 1983;Bradley, Desai and Kim, 1988).The asymmetric distribution of gains between the acquirer and the target remains a puzzle in both the finance and strategy literature. If most of the studies show that, on average, acquirer shareholders about break even, very few emphasize that this mean hides a large variance in acquirer gains. Anecdotal evidence suggests that some mergers lead to major losses to acquirer shareholders (IBM/Lotus, Novell/Word Perfect, HP/Compaq, ATT/NCR, Viacom/Paramount), while others can
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