Mergers and acquisitions

Abstract

Mergers and acquisitions are global trends that have characterized the business world throughout the last decade with thousands of deals taking place every year, most of which involving banks.The United States witnessed periods of high merger activity, also known as waves. As for Europe, the introduction of the euro accelerated the merger trend; many European countries finished the consolidation process, some are halfway through, while the rest have just started undertaking this process. Concerning Japan, the burst of the economic bubble drove banks to undertake mergers, many of which were mega-mergers. Developing countries initiated this process lately due to liberalization and the growing foreign competition.

This study will assess the merger and acquisition activity in the United Arab Emirates by stressing on its impact on the banking sector, in particular, and on the national economy, in general. We will have a case study on one of the mergers that took place in the UAE, namely between Emirates Bank International (EBI) and National Bank of Dubai (NBD), which merged to create one of the Middle East's largest banks with assets of Dh 165 billion.