Merger Arbitrage

What is Merger Arbitrage

The term “merger arbitrage” refers to the investment strategy that involves simultaneous buying and shorting of stocks of two merging entities in order to construct a financial instrument that offers “riskless” profit. In other words, a merger arbitrage is an investment strategy in which an investor takes advantage of the market inefficiencies pertaining to the occurrence of a merger or acquisition and the uncertainties of the probable outcomes. It is an event-driven strategy usually deployed by the hedge funds and it is also popularly known as Risk Arbitrage.

How does Merger Arbitrage Work?

As it has already been discussed above that investors use merger arbitrage to exploit the uncertainties surrounding the successful execution of a merger, especially during the period between the announcement of the acquisition and formal completion of the same. For instance, let us assume that Company A is the acquirer and Company B is the target in a merger transaction. Now, on Jan 1, 2020, Company A announced that it is going to acquire Company B in the next 6 months at the offered price of $100 per share. On the day of the announcement, Company B’s share price jumped from a pre-announcement price of $70 to close at $85 per share.

The period between the announcement of the deal and when its formal execution is very critical for a merger arbitrage, which in this example is 6 months. This period includes a multitude of processes, such as shareholder’s approval for the deal, approval from the regulatory authorities, tracking the performance of the target company and a bunch of legal paperwork. The spread between $85 and $100 captures the perceived risk of the deal not going through as per plan. Now, as the day for the deal arrives closer and if there is no negative news pertaining to the merger, then the share price of the target company will continue to inch towards the target price of $100.

On successful completion of the deal, the investor who invested at $85 per share will make a profit of 17.6% (= ($100 – $85) / $85 * 100%), which can be annualized to 35.2%. So, here the basic idea is that, if an investor bought the target company’s share on the announcement date and waits for the deal to execute, then he or she can make an annualized return of 35.2%.

Examples of Merger Arbitrage

Some of the major examples have been discussed below:

• In June 2016, Microsoft Corp. announced that it is going to acquire LinkedIn Corporation as per a definitive agreement. It was an all-cash transaction worth $26.2 billion under which Microsoft bought each LinkedIn share for $196. On the day of the announcement (June 13, 2016), LinkedIn stocks were started trading at $131.08 per share to close at $192.21 per share. The deal was successfully completed in December 2016. If an investor had bought LinkedIn share at $192.21 and waited for 7 months, then he would have made annualized profit of 3.38% (= ($196 – $192.21) / $192.21 * 12 / 7). It is an example of merger arbitrage.
• In October 2018, IBM and Red Hat entered into definitive agreement under which IBM agreed to purchase the entire equity share of Red Hat at a target price of $190 per share in an all-cash merger. The transaction was one of the most significant tech acquisitions of the year, valued at approximately $34 billion. The pre-announcement price of $116.87 per share soared up to $$169.93 by the end of the announcement day. The deal was successfully completed in July 2019. If an investor had bought Red Hat’s share at $169.93 and waited for 8 months, then he would have made annualized profit of 17.7% (= ($190 – $169.93) / $169.93 * 12 / 8). It is an0ther example of merger arbitrage.

Merger Arbitrage in Investment Strategy

As an investor who is interested in taking advantage of a merger, one must evaluate the probability of whether or not the merger will be executed successfully.

Now, a merger arbitrageur has strategy for both the situation.

• High Probability of Successful Closure: A merger arbitrageur will purchase the shares of the target company (trading at a lower price band) while he or she will short the shares of the acquiring company (trading at a higher price band). Now, after successful closure of the deal the share of the target company converts into the shares of the acquiring company. In this case, the investor will use the converted shares to cover its short position and as a result will sell the shares at a higher price.
• Low Probability of Successful Closure: In this case, the investor will short sell the stocks of the target company. When the merger fails to happen, then the share price of the target company will fall back to the pre-announcement level. The failure of the deal can be due to multiple reasons. However, the arbitrageur can make profit by purchasing the stocks of the company at a lower price and covering its short position.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Below are mentioned the advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

Merger arbitrage has several advantages and some of them are as follows:

• Merger arbitrage strategies are focussed on limited downside risk coupled with informed decision making. As such, in most of the cases the strategies are found to be market neutral with ability to make profit in any market situation.
• If executed properly, these aggressive strategies can yield high return in a very short span of time.

Disadvantages

Merger arbitrage has several disadvantages and some of them are as follows:

• At times some of the investors use these strategies in a purely speculative way, which may surge the stock prices to levels that can’t be explained through fundamental analysis.
• Larger hedge funds deploy bulk transactions and use these strategies to influence the market.

Recommended Articles

This is a guide to Merger Arbitrage. Here we also discuss the introduction and how does merger arbitrage work along with different examples. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more –

1. Hedge Fund strategies
2. Hedge Fund Strategies
3. Merger Accounting
4. Vertical Merger Example