Corporate Acquisitions and Bank Relationships

We study the dynamics of firm-bank relationships following corporate acquisitions using a novel firm-bank data set for 23 European countries over 2008–2014. Our data allows us to track changes in both firm ownership and bank relationships over time. To examine the effect of ownership change on bank relationships, we combine a difference-in-differences approach with matching. We find that the majority of acquisitions are associated with substantial changes in bank relationships of target firms. Acquiring firms actively change the composition of these relationships, incorporating banks with superior knowledge of the target’s local market or with expertise in the target’s industry. This reallocation appears to mitigate informational frictions associated with the acquisition. Our findings are consistent with theories of financial intermediation that emphasize the role of banks in accumulating and providing soft information about the real economy. This paper was accepted by Bo Becker, finance. Funding: This work used the Dutch national e-infrastructure with the support of the SURF Cooperative [Grant EINF-9542]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.04231 .