Friday, March 30, 2012

Do bad bidders make good targets?

Magic Johnson's group just bought the LA Dodgers for of $2.15B. That the bid was so much higher than anyone else's suggested the possibility that they had failed to anticipate, and thus avoid, the winners' curse:

“When the offers arrived, the bid from the Johnson-Walter group was so much higher than the competing offers, it essentially took the franchise off the block almost instantly.
The person said the other offers, which were perceived as opening bids, were in the range of $1.5 billion, some 25% less than the Johnson-Walter bid. As a result, the other bidders were never given a chance to match, and the deal was wrapped up by Tuesday evening.”

If they over-estimated the value of the franchise, does this indicate bad management, and thus an opportunity for someone else to take over the firm and run it more successfully? See the classic work on this, Do bad bidders make good targets?

...Firms that subsequently become takeover targets make acquisitions that significantly reduce their equity value, and firms that do not become takeover targets make acquisitions that
raise their equity value.

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