Acquerer’s stock price dynamics around M&A announcement: airline company case

Merger and Acquisition, as consolidation tools, are experiencing a high demand in business world. Companies merge in order to obtain synergies and generate shareholders value. However, there are losers in M&A deals. While target companies gain positive returns and additional shareholders value, acquirers usually suffer losses or nearly zero returns. In this article I have looked at M&A deal from the acquirer company side and showed that positive returns may be generated by acquirer, too. As an example of such deal I have taken acquisition of AirTran Holdings Co (U.S.) by Southwest Airlines Co (U.S.) which was announced on 27. 09. 2010.