Abstract
After World War II the German company network was characterised by strong ties between management, capital, and labour and by a low level of M&A activity. M&A activity increased in Germany from the 1990s, mainly as a result of developments associated with German unification, and continued to rise in the 2000s. The increase was a little smaller than in Europe as a whole, and much smaller than in the US or the UK. Although Germany did not adopt an Anglo-US-American type of M&A regime, changes in the strategy of bigger German banks and enterprises encouraged M&A from the early 1990s on. This was supported by the policies of the German government and the European Commission. These developments involved moderate changes rather than a decisive leap towards a liberal market economic model with easy and frequent takeovers. Hostile takeovers have not been very common in Germany and, if they take place, they are generally of a managed type, involving a compromise between all the stakeholders. The German M&A regime can be judged as hybrid, combining elements of a market radical approach with a strong non-market stakeholder orientation. Vodafone’s hostile takeover of Mannesmann in 2000 was a shock for the traditional German corporate governance model and led to a form of consensus that takeovers should be possible, but not in a market radical way.
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- 1.
Aktiengesetz.
- 2.
Deutschland AG.
- 3.
Wertpapiererwerbs- und Übernahmegesetz (WpÜG).
- 4.
Once a shareholder acquires at least 30% of the company shares, he or she is obliged to make an offer to purchase the remaining shares of that company at a fair price.
- 5.
This ‘flip-in’ strategy consists of offering the existing shareholders (but not the acquirer) to buy shares on a discount price.
- 6.
Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex (DCGK).
- 7.
Gesetz zur Kontrolle und Transparenz im Unternehmensbereich (KonTraG).
- 8.
‘A study of the 24 largest widely held companies in 1992 revealed that banks represented an average 84% of the votes attending the annual shareholder meeting, and the big three banks—Deutsche, Dresdner and Commerzbank —accounted for an average of 35% of total votes.’ (Schaede 2000, p. 8).
- 9.
See Aktiengesetz §221, n.31 et seq., quoted in Rieckers and Spindler (2004).
- 10.
Gesetz zur Namensaktie und zur Erleicheterung der Stimmrechtsausübung (Namensaktiengesetz).
- 11.
Steuererleichterungsgesetz.
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Data Sources
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Detzer, D., Dodig, N., Evans, T., Hein, E., Herr, H., Prante, F.J. (2017). The Involvement of the Financial Sector in the Restructuring of the Economy. In: The German Financial System and the Financial and Economic Crisis. Financial and Monetary Policy Studies, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56799-0_11
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