Corporate Restructuring through Mergers and Acquisition: Experience from Nigeria

This paper examines corporate restructuring in Nigeria with emphasis on mergers and acquisition. It started by reviewing the history of mergers and acquisitions and went further to theoretically assess the implications of mergers and acquisitions for economic growth. The foray into history revealed very few mergers and acquisitions in the years prior to bank consolidation (2004- 2005). The unprecedented numbers of mergers and acquisitions during bank consolidation prompted the adoption of this period in the assessment of the impact of mergers and acquisitions on banks’ performance. To achieve this, the study compared the pre and post consolidated performance of banks using seven years before (1997-2003) and seven years after (2004-2010) bank consolidation in Nigeria in the analysis. The study concludes that Nigerian banks performed slightly better after consolidation. Keywords: Mergers, acquisition, bank performance, consolidation