Risk Reduction as a Managerial Motive for Conglomerate Mergers

TLDR

Conglomerate mergers reduce risk through diversification, yet in perfect capital markets this benefit does not favor stockholders because they can achieve desired diversification independently. The study investigates whether managers pursue conglomerate mergers to reduce their own employment risk rather than to benefit shareholders. The authors tested the hypothesis by conducting two empirical analyses of conglomerate merger activity. Both tests supported the hypothesis, showing that the data are consistent with risk‑reduction motives for managers.

Abstract

A conglomerate merger generally leads, through the diversification effect, to reduced for the combined entity. As is well known, in perfect capital markets such reduction will not be beneficial to stockholders, since they can achieve on their own the preferred degree of in their homemade portfolios. What, then, is the motive for the widespread and persisting phenomenon of conglomerate mergers? In this study a motive for conglomerate merger is advanced and tested. Specifically, managers, as opposed to investors, are hypothesized to engage in conglomerate mergers to decrease their largely undiversifiable employment risk (i.e., of losing job, professional reputation, etc.). Such risk-reduction activities are considered here as managerial perquisites in the context of the agency cost model. This hypothesis about conglomerate merger motivation is empirically examined in two different tests and found to be consistent with the data.