Do cross-border M&As pay off? Empirical evidence on Italian acquirers

My research is focused on Italian companies that engage in outbound cross-border M&As. Specifically, I am interested in analyzing the accounting performance of bidders involved in these deals. According to KPMG's M&A reports for 2022, the Italian M&A industry experienced significant growth between 2013 and 2022, with a CAGR of +158% and a rise in completed deals from 381 to 1184 annually over the past decade, resulting in a total value increase from 31 billion to 80 billion. With my work, I aim to identify the characteristics of Italian companies that engage in cross-border M&As, and how their available resources impact their decision-making. I also intend to investigate whether the performance of Italian acquirers improves after M&As, particularly in terms of profitability and marginality, as measured by ratios such as Return on Assets (ROA) and EBITDA margin, compared to Italian companies with similar characteristics that did not engage in cross-border M&As. To measure the causal effect of international acquisitions on business performance, we used a difference-in-differences approach combined with propensity score matching.