The Quest for Corporate Control: Cross-Border Acquisitions and Foreign Takeovers in Italy, 2005–2015

This paper covers the trend of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of corporate control in Italy. The expansion of international acquisitions in the last decades changed the corporate structure of industries and business organizations. The common understanding regards the suspicious transfer of control of companies to a foreign owner. However, the reasons seem ungrounded, and the evidence is conflicting. This paper aims to disentangle this view and offer a more objective assessment. The research uses a dataset comprised of 446 cross-border deals of foreign companies targeting Italian business enterprises over the period 2005–2015 and their performance over the period 2013–2022. The case of Italy is of interest because of the number of foreign acquisitions in the years that comprised the great financial crisis (2007–2008) and the sovereign debt crisis (2010–2011). Foreigners’ takeover of Italian companies followed multiple strategies and produced international synergies. The article concludes with implications and considerations for further research.