Research On The Impact Of ESG Rating On M&A Value Craetion

In recent years,with the social attention to the ecological environment,the concept of sustainable development has been deeply rooted in people’s hearts.ESG is an investment concept and enterprise evaluation standard based on the three dimensions of environmental protection,Social responsibility and corporate Governance,and is an indicator that focuses on whether an enterprise has a sense of social responsibility and sustainable development ability.ESG rating is a comprehensive quantitative index of ESG investment and ESG information disclosure of enterprises.It is often used in the investment field.Investors can use this rating to understand the operation and risk situation of enterprises.Merger and acquisition is a common means of investment and one of the important ways for enterprises to expand.In recent years,the scale of M&A market in our country is becoming larger and larger,and enterprises expect to obtain scale effect and synergy effect through M&A.This paper links ESG rating with M&A value creation,and explores whether better ESG rating performance can increase M&A value.Based on the review of relevant literature on ESG rating,financing constraints,M&A value creation and theoretical analysis of stakeholder theory,M&A effect theory,signal transmission theory and other hypotheses,this paper takes the domestic M&A events of A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2018 as research samples,and studies the impact of ESG rating on M&A value creation through fixed effect model.In addition,the mediating variable financial constraints and the moderating variable media supervision are introduced to construct a moderated mediating effect model and explore the mechanism of ESG rating affecting the value creation of M&A.Through empirical analysis,the following conclusions are drawn: the better the ESG rating is,the more value is created by M&A;Better ESG rating can alleviate the financing constraints faced by enterprises;Financing constraints can reduce agency problems and increase M&A value creation.Financial constraints play a mediating role in the relationship between ESG rating and M&A value creation;Media supervision moderates the mediating effect of financing constraints on the impact of ESG rating on M&A value creation.Further research finds that the better the ESG rating of non-heavy polluting enterprises is,the more value creation of M&A is,while this relationship is not significant in heavy polluting enterprises.The better the ESG rating of companies with horizontal M&A types is,the more M&A value creation is,while this relationship is not significant in vertical and diversified M&A types.When enterprises make ESG investment,it is conducive to improving the internal governance capacity of enterprises,thus promoting merger and acquisition integration,generating synergistic effect and improving the business performance of enterprises.When an enterprise obtains a good ESG rating,it can be used as a favorable signal to show the market investors that the enterprise has a sense of social responsibility,which helps to enhance the market value of the enterprise after M&A.This study provides a basis for ESG rating to increase the value creation of M&A.On this basis,we further study the mediating effect of financial constraints and the moderating effect of media supervision,which makes the mechanism of ESG rating affecting M&A value creation clearer.