Post- Merger and Acquisitions Performance of Commercial Banks Listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange

Abstract

This study analyzed the post-merger performance of commercial banks listed in the Nairobi Securities exchange using secondary data over the period 2001 to 2014 using both trend and ‘paired t’ t test analysis. The empirical results of the trend analysis showed that both the return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) had dropped below the industry average in the first three years, after which they rose above it.  Hence, consistent with past studies, the results showed that mergers increase the value of the firm only in the long run, implying that merged firms outperform the industry with a time lag of about three years in terms of both ROA and ROE. Consequently, it was recommended that merger decisions should integrate time lag structure on the expected benefits. The results of the “paired t” tests on ROA and ROE show that, at both 0.01 and 0.05 levels of significance, we could not reject the null hypothesis that the merged commercial banks do not outperform the banking industry in Kenya. This rather disappointing conclusion is consistent with previous empirical evidence which has failed to reveal significant ex-post performance benefits of mergers and acquisitions across a wide variety of methodologies, samples and time periods (Bernile et el., 2012; Chen et el., 2013). Finally, in recognition of mounting mergers and acquisitions despite disappointing empirical evidence, the study recommends that further studies should be undertaken to compare the factors influencing the financial performance of the financial as well as the non-financial companies listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange as well as those not listed.

Keywords: Financial performance, Return on assets, Return on equity, NSE, Merger, Acquisition