In view of the restructuring of the Indian corporate sector in the form of mergers and acquisitions (M&As), the book carries out an in-depth analysis of the mergers that have taken place in the Indian Drugs and Pharmaceutical Industry since 1990-1991. Using an innovative methodology the book answers two important questions: why some firms acquire? And why some get acquired? The author points out to the possibility of exploiting financial synergies between the acquiring and acquired firms through M&As. The results corroborate that both size and profitability matter in the market for corporate control. Further, the contention that efficiency has no role to play is not supported by the analysis.

In addition to this, the book provides a rigorous analysis of the nature of selection mechanism of mergers. It examines how acquired firms differ from the acquiring and also how participant firms are different from the non-participants. The findings reveal that long-term debt is a binding constraint for a non-acquiring firm to be an acquiring in the market.

The book also includes an appraisal of the industrial and stock market reforms, where the concern over need for ‘takeover market in India’ is also developed. Apart from an issue-based comprehensive survey of literature on M&As, the book also covers a systematic analysis of Indian trends along with detailed analysis of global trends in M&As.

Paramjeet Kaur is an Associate Professor of Economics at Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, University of Delhi. She has been teaching undergraduate as well as postgraduate students of Commerce, Economics and Management over the past two and a half decades. Her areas of specialisation are economic theory of a firm, macroeconomic theory and statistical methods.

Several of her research papers have been published in reputed journals such as Economic and Political Weekly and the Indian Economic Journal. She has also presented papers at national and international conferences. Presently, she is working on post-merger aspects of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in India.