A new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia's (UBC) Sauder School of Business showed women directors perform better at mergers and acquisition, according to report published by Eurek Alert today.
According to a forthcoming Journal of Corporate Finance issue, the cost of an acquisition goes down by 15.4% for every female board director. The Sauder study revealed that adding another female director decreases the number of a firms' attempted takeover offers by 7.6%, the report explained.
Kai Li, Sauder finance professor and co-author of the study, said: "Our findings show that the prudence exhibited by women directors in negotiating mergers and acquisitions has had a substantial positive effect on maintaining firm value. This finding adds fire and force to recent calls to mandate a minimum number of women on the boards of publicly traded companies."
Researchers said the results of this study suggest women are less interested in risky deals. They also said women are more interested in pursuing a higher return on investment, said the report.
For the said study, Sauder researchers analyzed acquisition bids made by S&P 1500 companies in the US from 1997 to 2009. The researchers looked at the bid premium and correlated it with the number of women directors on different boards, Eurek Alert reported.
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