Environmental Performance of Food and Beverage Firms in Merger and Acquisition Deals

Abstract

We build upon existing theories of merger and acquisition (M&A) to examine the differences in environmental performance between targets and acquirers in the Food and Beverage processing (F&B) industry. In a cream-skimming strategy, acquiring a firm with better environmental performance may add to the acquirer's existing green efforts and improve their environmental capabilities. In a turnaround strategy, an acquirer may buy businesses from a dirtier firm and later bring them up to the buyer's environmental standard. Among a set of 13 M&A deals in the F&B industry, we identify deals where targets have poorer or better environmental performance (toxic chemical management) than their acquirers. Our finding suggests that, among the given set of firms, there is some evidence of improvements in the toxic chemical management rate of targets and acquirers.

Department(s)

Business and Information Technology

Second Department

Economics

Research Center/Lab(s)

Center for Research in Energy and Environment (CREE)

Keywords and Phrases

Cream-Skimming Strategy; Environmental Performance Indicators; Toxic Chemical Management; Toxics Release Inventory (TRI); Turnaround Strategy

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1542-0485; 1542-0485

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2020 De Gruyter, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Nov 2020

Link to Full Text

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