Look at a recent example of a merger announcement, and log on to the website of the acquir- ing company. What reasons does the acquirer give for buying the target? How does it intend to pay for the target—with cash, shares, or a mixture of the two? Can you work out how much the target’s shareholders will gain from the offer? Is it more or less than would be the case for an average merger? Now log on to finance.yahoo.com and find out what happened to the stock price of the acquiring company when the merger was announced. Were shareholders pleased with the announcement?