My work on M&A shows that investment banks do matter for M&A returns – but past performance is a far better measure of quality than market share. I also show how low stock prices make a company much more vulnerable to takeovers than commonly believed, after you take into account the counter-effect that a high probability of takeover increases the stock price.
Empirics
- Do investment banks matter for M&A returns? (Bao, Edmans RFS 2011)
- Effect of prices on takeovers (Edmans, Goldstein, Jiang JF 2012)