Study On The Influence Of Opening Of High-speed Railway On Enterprise Mergers And Acquisitions

M&A plays an important role in promoting industry integration and upgrading industrial structure.On December 21,2015,the Central Economic Work Conference pointed out that China should properly handle the relationship between maintaining social stability and promoting structural reform,and make as many mergers and reorganizations as possible while avoiding bankruptcy and liquidation.Supported by relevant policies,M&A have boomed in recent years.However,M&A have repeatedly caused shareholder interests to be damaged.In this context,M&A affects the vital interests of all stakeholders and affects the smooth operation of the capital market,which has become the focus of common attention of the government,enterprises and academia.Therefore,it is of great theoretical significance and practical value to explore the influence of environmental factors with Chinese characteristics on M&A.Existing researches have extensively discussed the influencing factors of M&A from the characteristics of macro environment,corporate level and senior executives’ personal characteristics.However,the above research ignores the role of transportation and other objective environment and its changes on M&A.As a "National Name Card",high-speed railway not only highlights the "Speed of China",but also accelerates the flow of human,material,capital and information and other factors of production between cities,reshaping the urban system and restructuring the regional economic structure,and deeply affecting the regional economy and enterprise behavior.This paper explore the impact of changes in the objective environment on M&A,which helps to provide a new research perspective for the influencing factors of M&A.Based on this,this paper uses the dual difference method to test the influence of the quasi-natural experiment event of "High-speed Railway Opening" on M&A decision,M&A premium and M&A performance.First,this paper explores the impact of the opening of high-speed railway on enterprise M&A decisions.The study found that the opening of high-speed rail helps enterprises to make M&A decisions.The above findings are tested based on the DUAL difference model;Re-measure the opening of high-speed railway by the number of highspeed railway stations and the number of high-speed railway lines in each year in the prefecture-level administrative region where the main company is located;The endogeneity test was carried out with the topographic relief of the prefecture-level administrative region where the company is located as a tool variable.Controlling the impact of transport infrastructure;Excluding the influence of provincial capital cities,municipalities directly under the Central Government and cities under separate state planning;Control the influence of the region;Excluding the impact of the 2015 stock market crash and a series of robustness tests are still valid.Further test results show that the opening of non-intercity high-speed rail plays a greater role in promoting enterprise M&A decision;The opening of high-speed railway plays a more significant role in promoting the M&A decisions of companies in non-coastal areas;The influence of different market conditions on the relationship between the opening of high-speed railway and enterprise M&A decision is not obvious;The promotion effect of high-speed railway on M&A decision is more significant when the parent company is a non-state-owned enterprise.Second,this paper explores the impact of the opening of high-speed railway on M&A premium.The study found that the opening of high-speed rail helps to restrain M&A premium.These findings remained constant after a series of robustness tests were performed.The results of mechanism test show that the opening of high-speed railway affects M&A premium through two channels: "Reducing Information Asymmetry" and "Alleviating Agency Problem".Further test results show that the opening of non-intercity high-speed rail has a greater inhibitory effect on M&A premium;The opening of highspeed railway has a more obvious inhibiting effect on the M&A premium of non-coastal companies.When high-speed railway is opened between the merger company and the target company,and between stakeholders and the merger company,the inhibition effect of high-speed railway on M&A premium is more obvious.When the geographical distance between the merger company and the target company and between the stakeholders and the merger company is too far,the inhibition effect of the opening of high-speed railway on the M&A premium is limited to a certain extent.The inhibition effect of the opening of high-speed railway on the M&A premium is limited when the M&A event is of high importance.Thirdly,this paper explores the impact of high-speed railway opening on M&A performance.It is found that the opening of high-speed railway helps to improve the short-term and long-term M&A performance of enterprises.These results persisted after a series of robust tests,including endogeneity.In the part of mechanism test,the research finds that the opening of high-speed railway affects the M&A performance through two channels: "Reducing Information Asymmetry" and "Alleviating Agency Problems".Furthermore,this paper finds that the opening of non-intercity high-speed rail plays a greater role in promoting M&A performance;The opening of high-speed railway plays a more significant role in improving the M&A performance of companies in non-coastal areas.When high-speed railway is opened between the merger company and the target company,and between the stakeholders and the merger company,the promotion effect of high-speed railway on M&A performance is more obvious.When the geographical distance between the merger company and the target company and between the stakeholders and the merger company is too far,the promotion effect of the opening of high-speed railway on the performance of enterprise M&A is limited.When there is no defect in the internal control of the merging company,the opening of high-speed railway has a more significant effect on the improvement of M&A performance.The theoretical significance of this paper is as follows :(1)this paper discusses the influence of objective geographical distance on M&A behavior by taking advantage of the changes brought about by the opening of high-speed railway,and provides a new research perspective for the influencing factors of M&A;(2)Starting from the micro enterprise level,this paper systematically explores how the opening of high-speed railway affects enterprise M&A,providing empirical evidence from the micro enterprise M&A level for the research on the economic consequences of the opening of high-speed railway.(3)Based on the exogenous event of high-speed railway opening,this paper studies its impact on M&A under the theoretical framework of new geographic economics,which helps to provide new theoretical support for the application of new geographic economics in the field of corporate finance.This paper also has strong practical significance :(1)through a systematic study of the impact of the opening of high-speed railway on enterprise M&A,this paper helps to provide policy suggestions for the government on how to rationally plan high-speed railway construction to improve the efficiency of resource allocation and coordinate regional economic development;(2)The research of this paper is helpful to fully discuss the impact of the opening of high-speed rail on enterprise M&A,and provide reference for the company to accurately grasp the opportunities brought by the opening of highspeed rail and how to face the challenges;(3)The research of this paper also provides some inspirations and references for stakeholders to evaluate the value of M&A.