Yrityskaupat Suomessa: Onko maantieteellä väliä?

Abstract

This report explores domestic mergers and acquisitions across regions in Finland. The Finnish evidence reveals that geographical closeness matters a great deal for mergers and acquisitions within a single country. This means that a great number of domestic takeovers occur within narrowly defined regions. In addition, domestic merger flows substantially reinforce the core-periphery dimension. In particular, the firms located in the province of Uusimaa are gradually gaining control of firms located in the rest of the Finnish regions in net terms by conducting domestic mergers and acquisitions. The losers of control seem to be fairly evenly distributed across the other NUTS3 regions, including provinces such as Varsinais-Suomi, Pohjois-Savo and Pohjois-Pohjanmaa. The results from matched data show that the strong ability by an acquiring company to monitor the target (measured by the knowledge embodied in human capital and by the R&D intensity) is able to support mergers that occur across distant locations (especially foreign acquisitions). The R&D investments of the Finnish firm also increase the probability that this firm becomes a target in a cross-border merger.