ABSTRACT

Bidding and target firms invocating an external intervention to the extent of protecting their interests face the need for managing a new relationship with their advisor. It is easy to comprehend that such a relationship generates what scholars interested in the theory of the firm generally call agency problems (Berle and Means, 1932; Jensen and Meckling, 1976; for a complete review on agency theory see Eisenhardt, 1989). Acquiring and acquired companies usually have divergent interests that can be considered as the cause of the difficulties related to the acquisition process. Moreover, both the bidding and target firms can hold opposite concerns strictly depending on their own acquisitive objectives.