| Resumo: | I study 1858 mergers and acquisitions by US public acquirers between 1984 and 2020 to assess the impact of cross-ownership on post-M&A acquirer bankruptcy risk. Addressing a gap in existing literature, my statistically significant findings indicate that presence of cross ownership and a higher number of cross-owners decrease bankruptcy risk. Notably, risk is elevated with greater cross-ownership levels and larger cross-owner stakes in acquirers, explained by higher asymmetric information. Conversely, bigger cross-owner stakes in targets reduce bankruptcy risk. In conjunction with cross-ownership, greater executive motivation lowers risk, whereas interaction between higher number of cross-owners and monitoring increases post-M&A bankruptcy risk. |
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