M&A Outcomes and Willingness to Sell

Should target shareholders divulgate their willingness to sell (WTS)? In this article, we tackle this issue by investigating the net WTS wealth effect. We first model the trade-off between the probability of a sale and the price paid in case of a sale, and derive testable predictions. We then provide an empirical test using a proxy of the target’s WTS based on deal initiation and the chosen selling procedure, which are hand-collected in Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The results reveal a negative relationship between the target’s displayed WTS and its expected profits, mitigated by competition among acquirers.