Ownership Structure's Influence on Mergers and Acquisitions: An Agency-Theoretical Perspective on Swedish Publicly Listed Firms

Abstract

This thesis investigates the influence of firm ownership on the propensity and frequency of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). This is done with a final sample of 4890 Swedish publicly listed firms during the years 2018–2023. The thesis employs both Logistic and Poisson regressions. The results show that all examined ownership structures are statistically significant, rejecting the null hypothesis. The agency theory is used as a theoretical framework to provide possible explanations for these results. The findings validate the theory by highlighting how governance and alignment of incentives can steer firm behavior. By examining multiple ownership types in the same report, this study fills the gap in the literature, tending to only focus on a single ownership type per report, while omitting important control variables. Limitations include however a focus on only Swedish and public listed firms, suggesting future research to expand to private firms. Despite the limitations, this thesis provides new insights for shareholders, business-leaders, policymakers, and the general public when it comes to the relevance of ownership structures in the context of M&A.