Post-Merger Product Repositioning: An Empirical Analysis

We compile information on conglomerate firms’ additions and removals of products for a sample of 61 mergers and acquisitions across a wide variety of consumer-packaged goods markets. We find that mergers lead to a net reduction in the number of products offered by the merging firms, and the products that are dropped tend to be particularly dissimilar to the firms’ existing products. These results are consistent with theories of the firm that emphasize core competencies linked to particular segments of the product market.