“…I repeat the Mahalanobis matching technique as described above and match stock with cash acquirers based on variables including cash to total assets, return on equity, sales growth, the debt‐to‐equity ratio, the price‐to‐earnings ratio, total assets, bidder performance in the year prior to the acquisition, the standard deviation of bidder daily returns in the year prior to the acquisition, the relative size of the deal measured as the deal value over the market value of the bidder's equity, the market‐to‐book value ratio of the bidder as measured 42 days prior to the acquisition, and the actual level of debt. Vermaelen and Xu () and Uysal () show that the capital structure of the firm matters in the acquisition decision process. Pinkowitz, Sturgess, and Williamson () argue that cash rich firms are less likely to employ cash than stock takeovers.…”