A Research To Understand The Past Present And Future Dynamics Of M&A In The Luxury Sector, If They Pay And Which Effects Generate On Consumers

The main goal of this thesis is to investigate on the value implications of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) conducted worldwide in the luxury sector over the period from nineties to June2012. The first step has been try to understand the luxury goods industry, its key players and their performances, in order to have a clearer idea. After having explained what is the process generally run for M&A’ activities and explore what is happened in the recent years, we try to answer to a critical question:does M&A in the luxury sector pay? Mainly through the use of event studies’ methodology has been discovered that market adjustment reveals positive results announcement effects and consequently can be interpreted as value creating. The analysis attempts to understand also which will be the future trends of M&A activity in terms of bidders, targets and geographical location, and a certainty arises:future M&A will be accomplished. Last but not least a research of the effects produced by M&A in the industry on consumers welfare has been done:prices increase but consumers seem not to care too much about that.