A Hostile Takeovers of Companies - the Defense Tactics Against Unwelcome Offers

Abstract

You can encounter many forms of mergers and takeovers in economic practice. The most spectacular one, though relatively rarely appearing on the market, but always stirring up strong emotions, is the transaction known as "hostile takeover". This article aims at bringing the problem of the hostile takeover transactions closer to the reader, and particularly the presentation of defense tactics against unwelcome takeover offers. The first part of the paper presents and classifies means of defense, which is at the disposal of a target-company. In the second part of the paper representing the study of a case where there was an attempt of the hostile takeover of BIG Bank Gdański by Deutsche Bank, on the strength of the classification of the defense means presented in the first part of the paper, further analysis has been made heading towards the identification and assessment of the defense strategy used by the BIG Bank management.