CDS Investors’ Risk Perceptions of M&A Announcements

Merging a sample of 492 merger and acquisition (M&A) announcements from 284 acquiring firms across Europe and North America with data from 5-year single-name credit default swaps (CDSs) written on stock-listed acquiring firms between 2005 and 2018, the paper at hand empirically analyzes the CDS investors’ risk perceptions of M&A announcements using event study methodologies. As a baseline result, we provide evidence for significantly positive cumulative average abnormal CDS spread changes for both, European and North American acquirers suggesting that CDS investors perceive an increase in the acquiring firms’ credit risk exposures due to M&A announcements. Our baseline finding holds under several robustness checks, especially when controlling for the robustness of the empirical design. Moreover, results from a large variety of sensitivity analyses reveal a number of deal and firm characteristics that may explain why CDS investors from our sample expect an increase in the acquirers’ credit risk exposures due to forthcoming M&A transactions.