Mergers and Acquisitions in the US Energy Industry

This thesis investigated the abnormal returns around the announcement day of a merger or an acquisition for firms active in the US Energy Industry in the time period of 1995 to 2017. With the use of the adjusted market model positive cumulative abnormal returns were found for the targets and the combined firms, and negative abnormal returns were found for acquirers in a 3 day time period. A positive effect was found on the abnormal returns when the target and acquirer were operating in the same industry. No supportive evidence was found that small or big firms and cash or a different payment method had any influence on the abnormal return.