Do Poorly Governed Acquirers Transfer Wealth to Targets in Cross-Border Acquisitions?

We use the number of antitakeover provisions (ATPs) as a proxy for corporate governance and examine its impact in US domestic and foreign acquisitions made by US acquirers. We find that the targets of poorly governed acquirers earn higher postannouncement premiums, despite controls for deal characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, and country-level protections, suggesting that these acquirers overpay. Puzzlingly, in contrast with the domestic US findings of Masulis, Wang, and Xie, poorly governed acquirers in cross-border deals experience higher announcement period returns. The relation between governance and target returns appears concave, but this nonlinearity disappears once differences in country-level governance and deal characteristics are accounted for.