Corporate chiefs like to flaunt mergers and acquisitions as great triumphs of the imagination. The markets tend to greet mergers with whoops of delight — the share prices of the two companies often rise in response to such announcements.
This flies in the face of the fact that a large number of bank mergers, perhaps the majority, fail to enhance total shareholder value, that is, they do not enhance the aggregate value of the shareholders of both the companies involved. That has not stopped CEOs from trying.
Mergers, like marriage, represent the triumph of hope over experience: Every CEO hopes that he
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