Examining the relationship between the economic environment and restaurant merger and acquisition activities

Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine whether the economic environment affects the merger and acquisition (M&A) activities in the restaurant industry. Design/methodology/approach The M&A transactions in the restaurant industry between 1981 and 2013 (n = 1,415) were examined. Data were collected from the Securities Data Corporation (SDC) database. Using an autoregressive distributed lag approach, this study developed three error correction models to explore the short- and long-term relationships between restaurant M&A activities and four macro-economic factors. Findings This study found that there was a long-term equilibrium relationship between the M&A activities and the four economic factors and that economic outlook had a significantly positive impact in the long term, while the effect of cost of debt was significantly negative in both the short and long terms. The findings suggest that restaurant firms are more likely to adopt M&A strategy when they are optimistic about the future economy and can take on debt at a low cost. Practical implications The findings of this study are expected to help practitioners make informative M&A decisions in the restaurant industry taking into consideration the economic environment. They will also help investors effectively manage their portfolios by predicting and ascertaining the proper time to invest in the restaurant industry based on the changes of economic environment. Originality/value No known study has been identified that examined the relationship between macro-economic factors and M&A activities in the restaurant industry. The findings of the study are expected to fill the gap in the literature by demonstrating the economic environment and the M&A activities in the restaurant industry are in a long-term equilibrium achieved by self-correction of their short-term disequilibrium.