Clemson University

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An Event Study Analysis of the Dell-EMC Merger

Courtney Meddaugh
Clemson University, [email protected]

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An Event Study Analysis of the Dell-EMC
Merger

A Thesis
Presented to
the Graduate School of
Clemson University

In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Science
Applied Economics and Statistics

by
Courtney Meddaugh
August 2017

Accepted by:
Dr. Thomas Hazlett, Committee Chair
Dr. Raymond Sauer
Dr. Matthew Lewis
1 Abstract

The Dell-EMC merger presents a massive technology merger that will likely
have an impact on many different markets. This paper uses this merger in order
to test three commonly used methods of determining abnormal stock returns and
finds that the three methods do not significantly differ. In addition, event study
methodology is employed to evaluate share price reactions of competitors of Dell and
EMC in response to categorized merger announcements leading up to the acquisition.
It is determined that although some competitor returns move in a direction that could
imply anti-competitiveness, these results are likely caused by occurrences unrelated

to the merger.

ii
2 Acknowledgements

I thank my dad for his continued support during my thesis-writing process

as well as all throughout my time at Clemson. I thank my friends who helped me
through this, with special thanks to Will Ensor who provided valuable assistance. I
thank Dr. Hazlett for the inspiration for the paper and for all of his guidance and
feedback along the way. I also thank Dr. Lewis and Dr. Sauer for being on my

committee and for their patience, feedback and suggestions during the entire process.

iii
Contents

1 Abstract ii

2 Acknowledgements iii

3 Introduction 1
3.1 Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

4 Antitrust Enforcement Background 2

4.1 Horizontal Mergers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4.2 Vertical Mergers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4.3 So Which One is It? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

5 Literature Review 7
5.1 The Adjustment of Stock Prices to New Information . . . . . . . . . 8
5.2 Measuring the Effects of Regulation with Stock Price Data . . . . . . 10
5.3 Has Antitrust Action Against Microsoft Created Value in the Com-
puter Industry? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
5.4 Critiquing the Event Study Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4.1 Stock Market Evidence is Unreliable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.4.2 Stock Market Data is Noisy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
5.4.3 Mergers Have Minimal Effects on Stock Prices . . . . . . . . . 15
5.4.4 Event Studies are Crude Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

6 Setting the Scene for a Historic Merger 16

6.1 Company Histories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
6.2 The Complexity of EMC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

iv
7 Financing the Deal 20

8 Timeline of Events 21

9 Descriptive Statistics 22
9.1 Stock Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
9.2 Event Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

10 Models and Analysis 28

10.1 Experimental Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
10.2 Mean Adjusted Returns Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
10.3 Market Adjusted Returns Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
10.4 The Multivariate Regression Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

11 Discussion and Results 32

11.1 Mean Adjusted Returns Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
11.2 Market Adjusted Returns Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
11.3 The Multivariate Regression Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
11.4 Summary and Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

12 Determining Abnormal Returns 34

12.1 Pro-Merger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
12.2 Anti-Merger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
12.3 Neutral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
12.4 Summary and Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

13 Competitor Testing 40
13.1 Pro-Merger Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
13.2 Anti-Merger Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

v
 13.3 Neutral Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
13.4 Competitive Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
13.5 Addressing Hitachi’s Returns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

14 Potential Concerns 45
14.1 Reliability of Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
14.2 Non-Normality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
14.3 Overlapping Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
14.4 Lack of Pure Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
14.5 Aggregation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
14.6 Complementary Firms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
14.7 Non-Controversial Nature of Merger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

15 Conclusion 49
15.1 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
15.2 Suggestions for Future Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

vi
List of Tables

1 EMC Revenues by Product Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Dell Revenues by Product Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3 Description of Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
4 Mean-Adjusted Residuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
5 Market-Adjusted Residuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6 MVRM-Adjusted Residuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7 Pro-Merger Comparison (n = 18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
8 Anti-Merger Event Comparison (n = 10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
9 Neutral Event Comparison (n = 9) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
10 Pro-Merger Events (n = 18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
11 Anti-Merger Events(n = 10) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
12 Neutral Events (n = 9) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

vii
List of Figures

1 Dell vs. EMC Storage Market Shares by Price Point . . . . . . . . . . 6

2 EMC Pre-Merger Company Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3 Stock Price Percent Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4 Event Period Stock Prices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5 Entry Level and Midrange Storage Market . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6 Daily Normality Plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7 Monthly Normality Plot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

viii
3 Introduction

The Dell-EMC merger presents one of the largest acquisitions ever in the tech-
nology industry. In addition to its size, this merger was more complicated than the
simple purchase of one company. An acquisition of EMC meant purchasing all of the
smaller companies that fell under its umbrella. Because of its size, EMC was only
available at the high price tag of $67 billion. In order to meet this amount, Dell
sold off various facets of the company, billions of dollars in unsecured junk bonds,
shares of other companies, and millions of shares of tracking stock. During the en-
tire merger time frame of October 2015 to September 2016, there were many an-
nouncements discussing everything from merger financing and predicted decisions of
anti-trust agencies, to projected dates of close. Each of these events was met with
shareholder reactions, both of EMC, the acquiree, and each of its competitors in the
market. This paper attempts to track the abnormal returns of these companies in
response to each of these events and makes important conclusions about how stock
market reactions can reflect the perceived efficiency of the merger.

3.1 Objectives

There are several objectives of this paper. The first is to test the variation in
methods of determining abnormal return. The mean adjusted returns model, market
adjusted returns model and the multivariate regression model are used to determine
the returns of EMC. A comparison between the three is then made to show how
they differ. The next objective is to determine if the merger was monopolistic by
demonstrating if it was pro-competitive or anti-competitive. This is done first by
evaluating the significance and signs of abnormal returns of competitors in the mid-
range storage market in reaction to various types of events: pro-merger, anti-merger,

1
neutral and all events to determine the reaction of their shareholders.

4 Antitrust Enforcement Background

In 1890, Congress passed the first antitrust enforcement law, the Sherman Act
[2]. Two and a half decades later, the Federal Trade Commission was created along
with the implementation of the Clayton Act. The stated purpose of these antitrust
laws is to maintain an efficient, competitive market and protect consumers from
monopolies [2]. In addition to antitrust agencies’ analysis, mergers and acquisitions
are commonly studied by economists to determine efficiency, impact on the market
and competition, and welfare effects for consumers. In this way, many papers have
been published demonstrating the role of financial markets in antitrust cases and
large mergers. The stock market can be used as an indicator of how different relevant
parties are predict effects of the merger. This can assist in both horizontal and vertical
mergers, though they present different cases.

4.1 Horizontal Mergers

In economics, horizontal and vertical mergers have different commonly ac-

cepted methods of analysis and different reasons for concern. Horizontal mergers
involve two firms that operate in the same space with competing products. A com-
mon focus of horizontal merger analysis is market definition, and thus a search for the
relevant demand curve. Defining the market and locating this curve helps determine
exactly which part of the country, or countries, where there is a competitive concern.
It also allows for the identification of what companies are participants in the market
and what market share each participant has. The main concern and reason that reg-
ulation agencies block horizontal mergers is fear of monopolistic output restriction.

2
Combining two participants in the same market could allow the new firm to raise
prices and restrict output, harming consumers.
The SSNIP test, or hypothetical monopoly test, helps to formally define a
market. This is done by determining exactly which companies make up a market.
First, the merging parties are hypothesized to be controlled by a single firm. It
is then determined if an SSNIP, ”a small but significant non-transitory increase in
price”, would occur. If not, then the next most relevant competitor is included in
the hypothetical firm. This continues until an SSNIP occurs, at which point the last
incremental addition is determined to be outside of the defined market and is thus is
the not included in the now complete definition of the market. This test then allows
for an answer to the question, ”Does the demand curve become substantially less
elastic as a result of the merger?”. If the answer is yes, then there is the occurrence
of monopoly power. To complete this test, market shares and multiple price points
of the merging parties must be known.

4.2 Vertical Mergers

Vertical mergers involve separate firms that operate in the same industry but
are not competitors. Rather, they typically operate at different stages of an industry’s
supply chain and often produce a combined product or complementary products.
There is not usually a monopolistic concern with these types of mergers, and in
general they are less likely to create competitive problems due to differing market
spaces and competitors. Nonetheless, there are several concerns with vertical mergers
that are outlined by the United States Department of Justice. The first is the theory
of potential competition with a possible market entrant. This could occur if the
”acquired firm” is already in a market that the ”acquiring firm” is a potential entrant

3
to1 [28]. This could ultimately lead to deterioration in market performance or a lost
opportunity for a new entrant to improve market performance. In other situations, a
vertical merger could cause barriers to entry for the market. This would occur only
if the vertical integration is extensive enough that new entrants would have to enter
both markets, entry at the second market makes entry at the first more difficult, and
lastly the barrier of entry must be strong enough that the barriers of entry affect the
performance of the market [28]. In general, if the government expects that a vertical
merger will result in decreased market efficiency, it will likely be challenged by the
U.S. Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission.

4.3 So Which One is It?

The Dell-EMC merger presents an interesting classification situation. Because

of the vast product lines of the two companies, this merger is in some aspects horizon-
tal and in some aspects vertical. The main overlap in products and thus competition
between these two companies occurs in the area of small to mid-range storage. These
storage systems refer to ”build-as-you-go” data storage systems, typically customiz-
able by size, allowing additional disks/software to be added as the customer has the
need for them [26].
Table 1: EMC Revenues by Product Division

2014 2015 2014 & 2015

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Total % of Total
EMC Information Infrastructure $4,078 $4,377 $4,466 $5,296 $4,049 $4,421 $4,348 $5,070 $36,105 42.3%
Information Storage $3,680 $3,976 $4,051 $4,835 $3,663 $4,028 $3,961 $4,649 $32,843 38.5%
VMWare $1,352 $1,449 $1,508 $1,687 $1,510 $1,588 $1,664 $1,861 $12,619 14.8%
RSA Information Security $244 $243 $261 $287 $248 $238 $243 $258 $2,022 2.4%
Enterprise Content Division $154 $158 $154 $174 $138 $155 $144 $163 $1,240 1.5%
Pivotal $49 $54 $58 $65 $54 $64 $67 $83 $494 0.6%
Revenues reported are in millions of dollars.

This overlap is significant enough to be relevant. Table 1 shows EMC’s rev-

1
Taken from the Non-Horizontal Merger Guidelines, originally issued as part of the U.S. Depart-
ment of Justice Merger Guidelines June 14, 1984.

4
 Table 2: Dell Revenues by Product Division

2014 FY 2013 FY 2012 FY Total % of Total

Client Solutions:
Desktops and thin client $13,457 $13,160 $12,915 $39,532 23.0%
Mobility $15,504 $14,085 $15,226 $44,815 26.0%
Client Solutions services $2,718 $2,703 $2,674 $8,095 4.7%
Peripherals and third-party software $7,955 $7,992 $8,416 $24,363 14.1%
Total Client Solutions net revenue $39,634 $37,940 $39,231 $116,805 67.8%

Enterprise Solutions Group:

Servers and networking $9,749 $9,276 $8,799 $27,824 16.2%
Storage $1,437 $1,518 $1,694 $4,649 2.7%
ESG services $2,445 $2,553 $2,539 $7,537 4.4%
ESG peripherals and third-party software $1,083 $1,028 $977 $3,088 1.8%
Total ESG net revenue $14,714 $14,375 $14,009 $43,098 25.0%

Dell Software Group:

Total Dell Software Group net revenue $1,493 $1,311 $632 $3,436 2.0%

Dell Services:
Infrastructure and cloud services $1,734 $1,735 $1,603 $5,072 2.9%
Applications and business process services $1,248 $1,223 $1,295 $3,766 2.2%
Total Dell Services revenue $2,982 $2,958 $2,898 $8,838 5.1%

Total Revenue $58,823 $56,584 $56,770 $172,177 100.0%

Revenues reported are in millions of dollars.

enues for each quarter during the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years [37, 36]. This table shows
that during this time storage represented 38.5% of the company’s total revenue. This
”Information Storage” section also includes entry-level to high-end storage, flash stor-
age and storage software.
On the other hand, Table 2 shows Dell’s revenues by product division. Given
the large size and many different product lines of Dell, storage held a much smaller
share of the company’s overall revenue, approximately 3%, in comparison to EMC.
However, storage made up nearly 11% of Dell’s ”Enterprise Solutions Group”, which
itself produced about a fourth of Dell’s revenue [35].
The entry- to mid-range storage market can be defined with a price range
from $0 to $250,000. In 2015 and 2016, leading up to the merger, EMC held the
largest share in the market at 20.7% [9]. Dell was the fourth largest competitor,

5
 Figure 1: Dell vs. EMC Storage Market Shares by Price Point

behind EMC, NetApp and Hewlett Packard Enterprise with 8.7% market share [9].
Thus, combining the two companies was predicted to give these companies more than
a quarter share in the market. However, there were still many other competitors
in the same market, many with significant market shares. Thus, from a horizontal
standpoint, the Federal Trade Commission was able to easily decide that there was
no fear of monopoly within the storage market with the combining of Dell and EMC.
This lead to a rather timely approval of the merger.
Despite this overlap in products, this acquisition was mostly vertical in nature.
Even with both companies having a large stake in the computer storage market, Figure
1 demonstrates that even within this aspect of their businesses, the two companies
had differing specializations. Dell focused on more consumer-oriented, smaller price-
band storage. This provided them with a larger market share than EMC in storage
priced from $0 up to $25,000. On the other hand, EMC’s main focus was in large
enterprise-focused, higher price-band storage. They thus far exceeded Dell’s market

6
share in storage priced from $25,000 to $250,000.
For this reason, one of the main selling points Michael Dell and other top
executives at the two companies stressed throughout the merger was their desire to
create a favorable ”one-stop shop” for customers. Companies would now be able to
purchase all required sizes and prices of storage, among all other products, at a single
company, rather than having to separately shop at both to suit different needs. This
has been a common trend in the past several years, as many consumers appreciate
the convenience of ”big box” stores. Companies such as Walmart and Target have
become competitive with grocery stores, with price and accessibility being major
selling points [22].
Other than the overlap in entry-level and mid-range storage, the two companies
differed greatly in the products they offered. Dell’s other products included desktops,
laptops, tablets, gaming consoles, printers, monitors, software, and various other
computer accessories. These could be purchased by the individual consumer in single
quantities or by companies in bulk. On the other hand, EMC offered very little in the
way of individual consumer products. Their product list included cloud management
software, cloud storage, data protection software, information security packages and
more–all of which were aimed largely at businesses rather than individual consumers
[11]. Due to the differing markets the two companies competed in, the merger was
also very vertical.

5 Literature Review

Literature regarding financial event studies is rather plentiful. MacKinlay

(1997) cites the first paper involving an event study to be James Dolley’s 1933 Char-
acteristics and Procedures of Common Stock Split-Ups [13, 25]. In his paper, Dolley

7
looks at 95 stock splits and how they impact the price of the stock. In the decades
following this, event studies developed further, leading up to the seminal paper by
Fama et al. (1969) [15].

5.1 The Adjustment of Stock Prices to New Information

The paper The Adjustment of Stock Prices to New Information written by

Euegene F. Fama, Lawrence Fisher, Michael C. Jensen, and Richard Roll, published
in 1969 was influential in the world of stock price event studies [15]. In this paper,
the authors attempt to determine if there is any abnormal behavior in the returns
on a split security during the months surrounding the stock split. When abnormal
behavior is found, they next address to what extent it can be accounted for by the
relationship between stock splits and other variables.
They use data on 940 stock splits occurring between January 1927 and De-
cember 1959 that meet their specified criteria2 . The following model is developed to
show the relationship between monthly rates of return by a security and the general
market:

loge Rjt = αj + βloge Lt + ujt

where Rjt represents the relative price of the j th security for the tth month3 ,
Lt is an average of the Rjt for all securities on the New York Stock Exchange during
this time period to be used as a baseline comparison for ”general market conditions”,
αj and βj are parameters that vary with each security, and ujt is a random term4 . By
2
For inclusion a split security must have been listed on the NYSE for a minimum of 12 months
prior to and after the time of the split, have at least five shares distributed for every four formerly
outstanding and have stock dividends of 25 cents or more
3 0
Rjt = (Pjt + Djt )/Pj,t−1 . This is the price of the j th stock at the end of month t summed with
the respective cash dividends, all divided by the price adjusted for capital changes in month t + 1
4
It is assumed that ujt satisfies standard linear regression model assumptions

8
introducing logarithms, this model can be interpreted as the monthly rate of return
on a security as a function of the corresponding market return. After evaluating this
equation and completing various tests for assumptions of linear regression and level
of fit, the authors determine that ”regressions of security returns on market returns
over time are a satisfactory method for abstracting from the effects of general market
conditions on the monthly rates of return on individual securities”5 . However, they
admit that it is an over-simplified model that must assume it is market conditions
alone that determine the returns on an individual security.
Through this model, Fama et. al. are able to demonstrate that stock splits
are very commonly preceded by a period of unusually high returns on the securities
to be split. They show that this is a reflection of the market’s anticipation of an
increase in dividends. This is logical, as dividends very often occurred shortly after
a stock split in the data used. The market views increased dividends as a sign of
future success for the company, as directors typically only increase dividends when
they are confident that future earnings will be large enough to support the higher
rate of dividends. Thus, the increased returns on securities ultimately are a result of
anticipated future company success, that can be inferred from the announcement of a
stock split. Investors react to stock splits only in how they anticipate them affecting
dividends and future success, and they do so smoothly. This provides testimony to
the fact that stock markets are efficient in reacting to events and reflect the beliefs of
investors on how events will affect future earnings and security prices.
5
Fama et al. (1969) page 7.

9
5.2 Measuring the Effects of Regulation with Stock Price

Data

Another seminal paper involving the use of stock market data in analyzing
antitrust regulation was Measuring the Effects of Regulation with Stock Price Data by
John J. Binder [5]. Binder’s paper looks at twenty major antitrust regulation changes
between 1887 and 1995 in an attempt to determine how well stock return data detects
the effects of regulation. Binder looks at the first news item regarding the possibility of
a given regulation through the entire history of changes until the regulation becomes
law. He uses the multivariate regression model to test for abnormal returns in stock
prices during these event periods. Binder advocates for the multivariate regression
model, as it allows for the testing of joint hypotheses in addition to tests for average
and cumulative excess returns.
After completing his model regressions, Binder uses hypothesis testing to verify
the statistical significance of the abnormal returns found. He looks first at monthly
data and finds that stock return event studies using monthly data are unlikely to
detect the effects of regulation when the specific dates that relevant information
reaches the market are not exactly known. Tests measuring abnormal returns in
all the months around and including the announcements perform no better than
tests that focus on the months and/or weeks containing announcements. Thus, he
concludes this type of data is very noisy.
He next uses daily data and finds that it fairs no better than the monthly
data. Significant stock price revaluations occur in the data only as often as would
be expected if left up to chance. Additionally, the cross-sectional average of event-
period average excess returns equals 0, implying that there are no abnormal returns
as a response to these events. The named reason for this is that information in

10
the announcements may be known and reflected in asset prices prior to the official
announcement period. He finds that tests of significance of the event-period average
excess returns are more useful.
However, Binder also determines that tests measuring abnormal returns in all
the months around and including the announcements perform no better on whole
tests than do those that focus on the months/weeks containing announcement. This
indicates that finding no impact on stock prices does not warrant a conclusion that
a regulation was ineffective, but rather may be a limitation of the method used.
Binder makes several suggestions that could have possibly improved his results.
First, using more precise dating of the change in the market expectations would allow
for the reactions to be more accurately tracked. Next, when nonzero excess returns are
found, they would be more convincing if linked to to firm-specific variables. He also
suggests that the multivariate regression model is most effective when unanticipated
announcements are found as it allows for the testing of joint hypotheses rather than
just average effects, and also allows for more accurate results to be found.
Binder’s biggest concerns in his paper revolve around the extreme difficulty
in finding announcements in the regulatory process that are unanticipated by the
market. He thus claims that stock returns are not always useful in studying the
effects of regulation, primarily when the dates that the market expectations change
cannot be exactly determined. This is an important conclusion that is regarded in
this paper.

11
5.3 Has Antitrust Action Against Microsoft Created Value

in the Computer Industry?

In their March 2000 paper DOS Kapital: Has Antitrust Action Against Mi-
crosoft Created Value in the Computer Industry? George Bittlingmayer and Thomas
Hazlett determine that financial markets can provide strong evidence in determin-
ing whether or not a firm is practicing anti-competitive behavior [6]. They do this
by analyzing 54 antitrust investigations made against Microsoft by both the Federal
Trade Commission and the Department of Justice between 1991 and 1997. They eval-
uate share price reactions for Microsoft and 159 other computer firms to determine
if antitrust enforcement initiatives affected the stock market value of Microsoft or its
alleged victims.
During the time period of the study, Microsoft had a very large market share,
a high rate of return and was anticipating unusually high future earnings. Defend-
ers of Microsoft explained this somewhat abnormal success by saying that Microsoft
was able to out-compete its rivals by expanding output and lowering prices. This
method hurt the company’s competitors, but benefited its’ consumers and thus was
not considered to be anti-competitive. Supporters also believed that antitrust en-
forcement would hurt consumers in numerous ways, including by imposing heavy
litigation costs and by penalizing pro-consumer actions under monopoly law, thus
deterring efficiency-enhancing behavior. This would cause stock prices of firms in the
computer industry to fall. Critics of Microsoft responded that the company gained
monopoly power through predation. They predicted that Microsoft would eliminate
all rivals and then see even higher monopoly rents in the future. In this sense, ef-
fective antitrust action against Microsoft should benefit firms that buy Microsoft’s
products by lowering input costs, benefit firms that produce complementary products

12
with an outward shift in demand for their products and lastly ease barriers to entry
for Microsoft’s rivals. Pro-enforcement events would mean positive abnormal returns
for competition and anti-enforcement events would mean negative returns.
Stock market data was used in this paper as it reflects investors’ judgments
about the marginal effect of antitrust enforcement on the expected profitability of
firms that were allegedly victimized by Microsoft’s monopolization. Using the Wall
Street Journal Index, 54 events are classified as pro-enforcement, anti-enforcement or
ambiguous. 1-day and 3-day residual returns are determined for Microsoft as well
as the industry as a whole. If it was found that stock prices in the computer sector
decline with the release of enforcement actions, this would imply a belief that antitrust
enforcement will impose losses on the industry as a whole and that Microsoft was not
monopolistic. For Microsoft, antitrust enforcement would not be beneficial, and thus
the companies returns should be negative with pro-enforcement news and positive
with anti-enforcement news.
The results of the study show average abnormal returns for all pro-enforcement
and anti-enforcement events for Microsoft and the industry for 1-day and 3-day win-
dows. It is found that when pro-enforcement announcements occur, the stock of both
Microsoft and other computer firms declined in value. The opposite occurred with the
anti-enforcement events, showing that both Microsoft and the industry thought that
antitrust enforcement was not beneficial. The ambiguous events meanwhile revealed
positive returns on average, but with a higher variance in returns.
Overall, the paper finds no evidence that antitrust against Microsoft created
gains for the rest of the computer industry. Rather, enforcement resulted in a de-
cline in Microsoft’s stock, and anti-enforcement resulted in a rise. This is the same
pattern as with the rest of the industry. This reveals that investors believe antitrust
enforcement increases the link between the fortunes of Microsoft and other computer

13
firms. Additionally, they believed government enforcement during this time period
harmed the computer industry as a whole by causing clear costs to the government,
to Microsoft, and to all of the other firms in the industry.
In general, this paper helps to demonstrate the usefulness of event studies in
determining the viewpoint of different market participants on antitrust enforcement
and merger-related events.

5.4 Critiquing the Event Study Methodology

Though event studies present a methodology used rather commonly in eco-

nomic literature and the evaluation of mergers, there is some controversy regarding
the accuracy of this methodology. In their 1989 paper, The Role of Stock Market
Studies in Formulating Antitrust Policy Toward Horizontal Mergers Gregory J. Wer-
den and Michael A. Williams discuss some of the drawbacks of this type of valuation
[38].

5.4.1 Stock Market Evidence is Unreliable

Given that all available information is reflected in the prices, stock markets
are considered efficient. By assuming that stock price movements move efficiently
and unbiasedly with merger events, event studies can be used to track the reaction
to merger announcements. However, Werden and Williams make the argument that
even if stock markets are efficient, they are not necessarily reliable. The information
they provide may not be strong enough to draw conclusions from. They point out that
efficient mergers may not significantly affect stock prices because efficiencies wouldn’t
necessarily affect market prices. Nonetheless, they acknowledge that the stock market
certainly could provide reliable information regarding merger efficiency, and do not

14
suggest a better method of merger efficiency evaluation.

5.4.2 Stock Market Data is Noisy

Different investors in the market posses different information, but it is unlikely

that any single investor has all necessary information to accurately determine what
stock prices in the market should be. For instance, the merging firms have inside
information on their company, whereas someone else may have inside information
on competitors, but neither is likely to have information on both. Thus, they argue
that the market has no means of pooling all of the information of these individual
investors, and that stock market data is noisy at best. However, this is a rather
counter-intuitive argument, as the pooling of all investors is exactly what the market
does.

5.4.3 Mergers Have Minimal Effects on Stock Prices

The next argument Werden and Williams make against event studies is that
the stock price reaction to a merger event is most likely minimal. In defense of
a counter to their previous argument, they acknowledge that the noisiness of the
market would be insignificant if the resulting signal of a merger event was sufficiently
large. However, they argue that this is not the case for several reasons. First, the
merger events may be anticipated in the market prior to their occurrence or official
announcement. Major traders in the market are often privy to to information from
enforcement agencies and utilize consultants who can predict their actions rather
accurately. In addition, anti-merger laws are somewhat self-enforcing. The high cost
of a major merger prevents obviously collusive mergers from ever being proposed.
Thus, firms will only propose a merger if it is likely to be approved.

15
5.4.4 Event Studies are Crude Tools

In addition to the difficulty of identifying relatively minor changes in prices

amongst noisy data, Werden and Williams claim that event studies can be crude
tools due to ”data problems and confounding events”. For instance, one common
method of completing an event study uses stock price information from competitors
of the merging firms–this is sometimes not possible as smaller rivals are often not
publicly traded companies. Not including companies that aren’t public can cause
certain inaccuracies in results. Ultimately, this paper challenges many other widely
accepted papers that make the claim that event studies are ineffective tools. While
Werden and Williams present compelling evidence that these types of studies are
not always reliable, it stands that no method of prediction is ”entirely reliable”. In
addition, there is no clear superior method presented in this paper for this type
of evaluation. Rather, it is important that though perhaps imperfect, event studies
provide a valuable tool for merger analysis that generates insight that would otherwise
be unknown.

6 Setting the Scene for a Historic Merger

6.1 Company Histories

In 1984, at the age of 19, Michael Dell began selling disk drives out of his
University of Texas at Austin dorm room to fellow students, referring to his small
company as ”PC Limited”. Just four years later, Mr. Dell renamed his booming
business to ”Dell Computer Corporation” and the company completed its first IPO.
Within the next 10 years, Dell, Inc. progressed effectively, developing its first laptop
computer, expanding international, and making Michael Dell became the youngest

16
Fortune 500 CEO in history [29].
Five years prior and 2,000 miles Northeast of Michael Dell’s dorm room success,
Richard J. Egan and Roger Marino founded EMC in Newton, MA. They began their
business with the production of memory boards and RAM6 upgrades. There is some
debate over the meaning behind the acronym ”EMC”. The general consensus is that
it stands for ”Egan Marino Corporation”, after the two founders. However, there are
other stories that there were originally four company founders, the other two with last
names Conley and Curly, or ”C2 ”, who dropped out very early on during the initial
formation of the company [34]. In 1989, Egan and Marino expanded EMC with the
development of new storage subsystems for IBM’s computers. Seeing similar early
success as Michael Dell, Egan and Marino’s memory and storage company achieved
Fortune 500 status in 1994 [30].
Over the next 2 decades, both companies continued to expand both in size
and range of products. In 2013, Michael Dell, along with private equity firm Silver
Lake Partners, bought back Dell Inc. from its public shareholders and took the
company private. The stated reason for Dell’s decision was to “accelerate [their]
solutions strategy and to focus on the innovations and long-term investments with
the most customer value” [18]. However, there were likely many other reasons at
play. In the five years prior to the decision to go private, Dell’s stock price had
fallen 31% [19]. Additionally, Dell had falling market shares and profit margins in
personal computers and servers–two major components of their business model at the
time–and thus felt this was the best decision. A year after successfully taking the
company private, Michael Dell wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal expressing
how beneficial going private had been for the company. In the article he discusses
6
RAM is an acronym for ”random access memory”, referring to a type of volatile data storage
located within a computer. It is cleared out whenever the computer is turned off.

17
how going private allowed the company to escape the constant demands for short-
term results demanded by shareholders and focus more on long-term growth and
innovation [12]. Several years later, Dell decided it was ready for another major
change–a large-scale acquisition.

6.2 The Complexity of EMC

One major component of this deal that makes it more complex than most ac-
quisitions is the breakdown of exactly what is included under the umbrella of EMC
Corporation. Figure 2 provides a visual breakdown of EMC Corporation. The com-
pany can be divided into four major lines of business. These are: 1. EMC II–
information structure 2. Pivotal 3. VMWare 4. Virtustream.
EMC II, EMC Information Infrastructure, is EMC’s primary business line.
This division focuses on storage systems and software solutions and includes several
different companies. These are VCE, RSA Security, and the Enterprise Content Di-
vision. VCE was formed by Cisco and EMC with help from VMWare and Intel in
2009. In late 2014, EMC acquired majority ownership of the company, with a small
percentage still owned by investors and Cisco. VCE pioneered converged infrastruc-
ture solutions by combining virtualization, networking, computing, and storage into a
single platform. Also included in EMC II is RSA Security, acquired by EMC in 2006.
This division produces computer and network security surrounding data and identity
protection. Lastly, the Enterprise Content Division, formed after EMC acquired Doc-
umentum in 2003, provides data management solutions to enterprises, pairing well
with EMC’s storage solutions.
Pivotal was formed in 2013 by EMC and VMWare with a hefty investment from
General Electric. It’s focus is on cloud computing and big data solutions, including

18
data warehousing for enterprises.
VMWare was founded in 1998 and purchased by EMC in December of 2003.
VMWare provides virtualization software and services. This includes software-defined
data center solutions that allow businesses to consolidate their numerous operating
systems into a single server. At the time of the merger, EMC had approximately an
81% stake in the company.
Finally, Virtustream, EMC’s most recent acquisition, was added to the com-
pany in 2015, purchased for $1.2 billion. Prior to the merger, the company was
equally owned by VMWare and EMC. The company’s purpose was to ”complete the
spectrum” of EMC and VMWare’s pre-existing cloud infrastructure offerings. Thus,
a purchase of EMC is more complex than a purchase of a single company.

Figure 2: EMC Pre-Merger Company Diagram

19
7 Financing the Deal

It is difficult to develop a thorough analysis of the Dell-EMC merger without

at least touching on how the deal was financed. Prior to the close of the deal, there
was some doubt among experts that a deal of this magnitude could succeed–if only
because of its complexity and the extremely high price tag of EMC.
Dell’s ability to successfully close a $67 billion deal was a result of numerous
sources of financing. Dell began by selling its IT services division to NTT Data Corp.
of Japan for $3 billion. They also sold 8 million shares of SecureWorks, a subsidiary
of Dell, at $14 per share, raising $112 million [33].
Next, Dell announced its plan to sell nearly $9 billion of unsecured high-yield
”junk” bonds. Next to be dealt with was the stock of EMC. When all was said and
done, EMC shareholders received $24.05 per share in cash [23].
In addition to these, Dell developed a unique plan for dealing with VMWare.
At the time of the deal, EMC’s 81% stake in VMWare was equal to 343 million shares.
At the close of the deal, Dell will retain 120 million VMW shares, equivalent to a
28% stake in the company. However, this will still give Dell a 97% voting right in
VMWare as a result of its joint ownership with EMC. Next, 223 million shares will be
converted to tracking stock [1]. Tracking stock are shares issued by a company which
pay a dividend that is determined by the performance of only a certain portion of
the entire company–in this instance, VMWare [17]. These shares are equal to a 53%
stake in the company, and will be issued to EMC shareholders as part of the purchase
of EMC. At the close of the deal, EMC shareholders received 0.11146 shares of new
tracking stock for each share of EMC they owned. The use of tracking stock is rather
rare in acquisitions. The main reason for using it in this instance is that Dell and
previous shareholders of EMC will continue to benefit from VMWare’s future success

20
by keeping it’s pre-merger structure in tact.

8 Timeline of Events

In 2013, Michael Dell first took his company private. To do so involved one
of the largest leveraged buyouts in history. Private equity firm Silver Lake Partners
acquired Dell Inc. in February of that year for $24.4 billion [31].
After that, news of a possible acquisition, with many potential acquirers, of
EMC first broke in September 2014. At the time, EMC was far from new to the world
of mergers and acquisitions, having completed over 35 acquisitions during its 37 years
of operation [30]. However, this would be EMC’s first time as the acquiree.
A possible acquisition was on EMC’s radar for some time prior to its purchase.
In September of 2014, the Wall Street Journal published an article discussing potential
buyers of EMC [10]. Among the companies mentioned were Dell Inc., Cisco Systems
Inc., Oracle Corp. and Hewlett-Packard. After this article, there was not much word
of a merger until early October of 2015. On October 7th, news was first exposed to
the public that Dell was in talks with EMC over a possible acquisition. The deal
was then officially confirmed on October 12th, 2015. Over the next couple of weeks,
numerous articles were released discussing the financing, time-line and opinions of
the potential deal.
The final months of 2015 were surrounded with questions–and answers–of how
a deal of this magnitude would be financed. Dell announced its plans to sell up to $10
billion in assets in November and followed up with the announcement of a VMWare
tracking stock and an initial public offering of SecureWorks to be issued in the coming
months.
Then, in February 2016, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission officially decided

21
not to challenge the merger in court, with the European Union’s approval following
shortly thereafter deal–two of the major regulatory hurdles the deal would need to
take on [14]. The following month, Dell’s IT services division, Perot Systems, was
purchased by Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) for nearly $3 billion.
In April, SecureWorks, a subsidiary of Dell, made its first IPO, falling short of many
expectations by trading at only $14 a share. The following month, Dell sold $20
billion in secured bonds to help finance the deal. In mid July EMC shareholders vote
on the deal, with 98% voting in favor of the merger. In late August, China granted
clearance for the deal. This was the final regulatory approval the companies were
waiting for, and thus the deal officially closed just over a week later on September 7,
2016.

9 Descriptive Statistics

One empirical method of evaluating the future outcome of a merger is to study

stock price changes as the case unfolds. This provides insight into the opinions of
shareholders on the merger and its potential for success.

9.1 Stock Data

The first step in completing an event study is to hypothesize an outcome and

then select the relevant companies. Next, the time period of interest is selected and
the relevant events are defined. For this analysis, daily close stock price data from
August 21, 2015 to September 6, 20167 was used. This period covers 1 month prior to
the first event through the last day EMC was publicly listed. This covers 263 trading
7
September 6, 2016 is used despite being the day prior to the official close of the merger as it
is the last day that EMC Corporation was publicly traded on the NYSE; there is no stock data
available after this date.

22
 Figure 3: Stock Price Percent Changes
This figure shows the percentage change in stock price for EMC and the SP 500 Index from
their values on day 0: June 1, 2016. The graph uses daily stock data.

days. All stock price information was taken from finance.yahoo.com.

From when the merger was first announced to the close of the deal, EMC’s
stock price was especially volatile. Figure 3 shows this changing price over time in
comparison to the SP 500 Index. Three different events are marked on the graph
for reference. The most blatant shock to the stock price occurred in the beginning
of October 2015, when the chance of a merger was first announced. The stock price
then continued to fall and decline in a fluctuating matter for the remainder of the
event period, though on average increased by about $5 a share from February 2016
through the end of the period. The graph also marks the European Union’s approval
of the merger, as it appears to be directly in the center of the largest price increase
for EMC during this period, as well as the vote by EMC shareholders in favor of the

23
 Figure 4: Event Period Stock Prices

merger, that leads to the final major increase in EMC’s stock price.
However, although viewing a company’s overall stock price trends during an
antitrust case can be useful, more relevant is a more focused analysis demonstrating
the direct effects of events of the case on stock prices. Stock prices of a company
can be a reflection of anticipated future profits, as well as of the market’s view of the
company. Thus, the stock prices in a merger case can indicate the public’s opinion
on the merger.
In merger event studies, tracking the stock prices of the target firm, here EMC,
can be incredibly useful. In this merger, EMC stockholders were aware that if the two
companies merged successfully, the new company formed would no longer be publicly
listed and they would no longer hold shares of EMC’s stock. For this reason, EMC
shareholders reacted to events only in anticipation of how they may effect the buyout
terms of the merger–not in anticipation of post-merger efficiency (an interpretation
of competitor returns). However, using EMC’s shareholders’ reactions to these events

24
and the abnormal returns calculated allows for the selection of which announcements
are most likely to have an impact on the market. Additionally, by tracking EMC’s
share price movements, accurate event windows can be established. EMC’s reactions
demonstrate the timing of exactly when merger news was received by the market.

9.2 Event Data

The list of events used for this event study was developed from The Wall Street
Journal online. It includes every news announcement released on http://www.wsj.com/
related to the merger during the entire period of this study. Events are classified as
one of three possible categories: pro-merger, anti-merger or neutral. An article is
classified as ”pro-merger” if the article contains information that implies the merger
will successfully be completed, or that it will be beneficial in some way to consumers
and/or the companies involved8 . An article is classified as ”anti-merger” if the article
contains information that takes a negative view of the merger in terms of its impact
on consumers, theorizes that it may not successfully go through, or discusses possible
repercussions to the companies involved. If the information presented in the article
is neutral and has no clear impact on the outlook of success of the merger, it is clas-
sified as ”neutral”. There are 34 different events looked at: 18 are pro-merger, 10 are
anti-merger, and 9 are uncertain. Descriptions of these events are shown in Table 3.
The event period can be written as (0,263) for the 263 trading days covered.
8
It should be noted that the FTC clearance of this merger is not included in the list of events,
as it was not a specific event published by the Wall Street Journal during this time. This speaks to
how non-controversial the merger was, as it was never really expected to be challenged by the FTC
and receiving this clearance was not considered a major stepping stone.

25
 Table 3: Description of Events
Date Article Title Article Summary Pro or anti
Released merger?
9/21/14 EMC Weighs Merger, Other EMC debated HP merger but held off with fears that HP shareholders would n/a
Options reject. First mention of possibility of merger with Dell.
7/21/15 VMware Reports 4% Rise in VMWare has rise in revenue and profits. pro
Revenue
10/7/15 Dell Is in Talks With EMC Over Introduces the possibility of the merger. EMC stock up after initial report of the pro
Possible Merger deal.
10/8/15 Debt Markets Hold Key to Dell’s Negotiations have advanced, agreement possible next week. But how would the pro
Bold EMC Bid deal be paid for?
10/9/15 Dell & EMC: A Question of Size Discusses how the deal could be financed—not easy and costly. Is it worth it? anti
Investors be wary—bigger might not be better.
10/9/15 Dell Files Confidentially for IPO Dell files for IPO for Dell SecureWorks. This is part of the merger plan, as n/a
of Cybersecurity Unit SecureWorks no longer fits will Dell’s other offerings.
SecureWorks
10/9/15 Succession for EMC Chief Joe What happens to Joe Tucci if the merger goes through? Who will be his successor? n/a
Tucci in Focus Amid Dell Talks
10/12/15 Why Dell’s EMC Bid Leaves EMC shareholders will receive shares of VMWare tracking stock for each EMC anti
VMware Looking Like Devalued share they hold. VMWare with concerns about how it will fare under Dell
Currency ownership.
10/12/15 Dell May Avoid Tax Hit on Deal, Dell can avoid tax bill by using tracking stock, but EMC shareholders will still anti

26
but EMC Shareholders Will Pay have to pay taxes on gains they make on the trade.
10/12/15 Tracking the Logic of Dell’s Introducing tracking stock increases VMWare’s float—will now be 73% publicly n/a
Tracking-Stock Maneuver traded instead of 20%. Tracking stock is less attractive investment but cheaper
way to play a company’s performance.
10/12/15 Dell-EMC Deal: What the Street Provides several different opinions on the merger—some positive and some n/a
Is Saying negative.
10/13/15 EMC Takeover Marks Return of Michael Dell vows to play central role in tech used by corporations with EMC pro
Michael Dell merger. Concern over the size and price tag of the merged company but Dell is
confident that benefits outweigh challenges. Willingness of banks to put up money
is sign of confidence.
10/13/15 Dell Envisions VMware Sales Concerns that the merger will dilute demand for VMWare shares. Dell could be anti
Gains harmful to VMWare.
1/27/16 EMC Profit Declines as Merger EMC CEO expects the deal to be completed by October, despite concerns and a anti
Costs, Dollar Weigh on Results reduction in the value of Dell’s offer. Missteps lowered VMWare’s share price and
expected payout for EMC shareholders. EMC reports lower than expected
quarterly revenue.
2/29/16 EU Approves Dell’s Takeover of EU approves Dell’s purchase, big hurdle in the race to a merger, saying they pro
EMC believe there will be no adverse effects on consumers.
2/29/16 EMC Begins Selling Novel EMC introduces new, faster, expensive data storage system. n/a
Data-Storage System
3/1/16 Dell-EMC on Track as Dell Merger is on track. Michael Dell releases memo outlining new management pro
Announces Post-Deal Executive structure of the companies.
Structure
 3/28/16 NTT Data to Buy Dell’s Japan’s NTT Data Corp buys Dell’s IT services division, enabling Dell to raise pro
IT-Services Arm cash to finance EMC deal.
4/20/16 EMC Misses Expectations but Merger has had missteps but is on track. VMWare stock has been suffering but is pro
Says Dell Deal Remains on Track now doing better. Linking with Dell could get EMC back on track.
4/21/16 Dell Faces High Cost to Fund Dell may have to pay 10% interest rate to sell $9 billion of unsecured junk bonds n/a
EMC Deal backing the acquisition. Very expensive deal but has some appeal to it.
Comparison to Western Digital deal—but Dell has a better outlook.
5/16/16 Dell Readies Massive Bond Deal Dell moving closer to completing massive bond deal paying above-market interest pro
rates. Moody’s rates Dell’s secured bonds higher than many expected.
5/17/16 Dell Sells $20 Billion of Secured This is one way Dell will be able to finance the deal. Merger is moving forward. pro
Bonds
6/10/16 Dell Parent Denali Reports Sales Dell’s parent company has falling sales, posted operating loss for the previous anti
Decline quarter, but overall adjusted profit.
6/19/16 Stocks to Watch: Netflix, WSJ reports EMC and VMWare as “stocks to watch”, as both were doing well. pro
Monsanto, J&J, VMware, IBM,
Goldman
7/18/16 EMC Reports Profit Up 19% EMC had strong second quarter, in good position for merger. So long as pro
Ahead of Shareholder Vote on shareholders approve, everything’s in place.
Dell Acquisition
7/18/16 Will EMC Adopt Dell’s Dell often delays payments to finance its operations; this could help them pay some anti
Lengthier Payment Terms? of the debt taken on to finance merger. However cash flow growth from delaying

27
payments is not real growth and this may not be a great strategy for EMC.
7/19/16 EMC Shareholders Approve EMC shareholders approve the merger after deciding that the merger is the “best pro
Merger With Dell outcome”. Dell’s consecutive declining sales push them towards this merger and
becoming a one-stop shop for IT.
7/19/16 VMware: Where Merger Fears Fears that the merger will hurt VMWare—15% of VMWare’s public float was sold anti
May Come Up Short short (4% prior to merger announcement) heading into the company’s second
quarter results. VMWare has partnerships with Dell rivals.
7/20/16 Dell to Sell Software Unit to Dell sells Dell Software Group in to help fund merger. pro
Francisco Partners and Elliott
Management
7/24/16 Dell, HP Take Opposite Tacks Dell is completing the largest tech merger in history while HP is breaking apart n/a
Amid Roiling Tech Market and trying to remain small. Hard to say which is the better route.
8/29/16 Private Clouds a ‘Big Priority’ Dell wants to be favored supplier in cloud computing market but it will not be anti
for Dell easy. Integrating a diverse group of software will be difficult and may struggle
against companies like Amazon with a contained, integrated experience.
8/30/16 China Grants Clearance for Dell receives regulatory clearance from China—merger will be completed Sept. 7th. pro
Dell-EMC Merger
9/6/16 Dell Posts Modest Revenue Dell reports revenue rose 0.6% previous quarter on the eve of EMC merger. Dell pro
Growth on Eve of EMC Merger aims to create one-stop shop with merger.
9/7/16 Dell Closes $60 Billion Merger Describes logistics of merger, what the new company will be, states its official close. pro
with EMC
10 Models and Analysis

10.1 Experimental Design

The basic idea behind an event study is to determine abnormal returns faced by
a given firm–EMC–during a specified event period. An abnormal return can be defined
as the residual between the actual return observed and the expected return under
normal circumstances. Determining these abnormal returns allows for a measurement
of the impact of a specific event(s) on a firm. The basic abnormal return equation
can be written as:

Ai,t = Ri,t − E[Ri,t ]

where Ai,t is the abnormal return of firm i at time t, represented by the differ-
ence between Ri,t , the observed return of firm i at time t, and E[Ri,t |Xt ], the expected
return of firm i at time t under normal circumstances. For the purposes of this paper,
the equation can be written as:

AEM C ,t = REM C,t − E[REM C,t ]

or adjusted as:

REM C,t = E[REM C,t ] + AEM C ,t

However, in order to solve for abnormal returns, it is necessary to develop a

prediction of EMC’s returns to use as E[REM C ] during the entire estimation period.
This establishes a baseline tool to determine what EMC’s stock price would have
been if the merger had not occurred. In this paper, three possible methods of de-
termining expected returns are tested. In their 1980 paper Measuring Security Price
Performance, Brown and Warner find that when abnormal returns occur there is little

28
difference between the various methodologies used to determine them [7]. However,
a main reason for using multiple models and trying to determine the best one is to
reduce the variance in the abnormal return component and therefore have a more
accurate number; thus all three are employed in this paper9 . A comparison of each
methodology will then be made.
In addition, to test the abnormal returns as a result of each category of merger-
related events defined in this paper, dummy variables are included in the regression.
Define Dt as a [0,1] variable that equals 1 if event i occurs on day t. Each variable
is measured using leading and lagging effects to account for possible information
leakage as well as capture the full impact of each event. 1-day, 3-day and 5-day
windows are used. For each, the announcement is made at day 010 and the event
window is measured as [0] for when no lead or lag variables are used, then [-1,1] and
[-2,2] for the 3-day and 5-day windows respectively. There are distinct dummies set
up for pro-merger, anti-merger, and neutral events. The coefficients on these dummy
variables reveal the abnormal returns as a result of the events. Thus, the regression
equation is as follows:

P2
REM C,t = E[REM C,t ] + k=−2 ci,t+k Di,k

Define ci,t+k as the coefficient on the dummy variables, thus representing an

estimate of the daily effects of an event.

10.2 Mean Adjusted Returns Model

The most simplistic approach to the abnormal returns equation is to use a

constant mean model. This model allows expected asset returns to be given by the
9
see Brown and Warner (1980, p. 209)
10
Day 0 is defined as the date from the time stamp on the publication for each Wall Street Journal
Article. Date is measured using EST and a 24-hour clock.

29
arithmetic mean of returns on security i, during the entire event period [n,N]. This
can be written generally as:

1 PN
E[Ri,t ] = N n Ri,t

Or for EMC and the entire event period of [0,263]:

1 P263
E[REM C,t ] = 263 n=1 REM C,t

This new measure of expected return can then be substituted back into the
original equation:

1 P263 P2
REM C,t = 263 n=1 REM C,t + k=−2 ci,t+k Di,k

This allows for the determination of daily and abnormal returns over EMC’s
average return during this period.

10.3 Market Adjusted Returns Model

The second approach uses a reference market as a predictor of EMC’s expected

return without the effects of the merger events. For the reference market the Dow
Jones U.S. Technology Index was selected. This index combines stock price infor-
mation of 422 technology companies that fall within the subcategories of Software &
Computer Services and Technology Hardware & Equipment–both categories which are
relevant to Dell and EMC. Using simple stock price correlation information, this index
was determined to be a better indicator of EMC’s stock movements than the com-
monly used SP 500 Index. Additionally, each stock price reported by Yahoo! Finance
was tested to determine the best possible correlation of EMC and the Technology
Index. The highest correlation was found with the lowest reported stock prices of the

30
day for this index and EMC11 . In the general formula, RM,t represents the market
index returns on day t:

E[Ri,t ] = RM,t

Or for EMC and the Technology Index:

E[REM C,t ] = RT I,t

This new measure of expected return can then be substituted back into the
original equation:

P2
REM C,t = RT I,t + k=−2 ci,t+k Di,k

Thus, with this method, EMC’s expected return is that of the Technology
Index, with abnormal returns evidenced during the event windows.

10.4 The Multivariate Regression Model

The third approach is to use the multivariate regression model. The basic
OLS market model is used commonly in economic literature, including by Fama et al
(1969) and Binder (1985) [5, 15]. It allows for the calculation of abnormal returns as
residuals. This method takes the market adjusted method a step further by assuming
a constant and linear relationship between EMC’s returns and the returns of the
Technology Index and regressing them as such. The base equation used here for the
expected return of a security is a function of the returns of the market index:

E[Ri,t ] = αi + βi RM,t + i,t

11
The period of January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2014 was selected to determine correlation
information as it represents a significant amount of time to determine an accurate correlation, but
does not include any of the events studied.

31
 Using EMC and the Technology Index:

E[REM C,t ] = αEM C + βEM C RT I,t + EM C,t

where αi is a constant, βEM C is the coefficient of the market model (Technology

Index), and it is a random error term.
This new measure of expected return can then be substituted back into the
original equation, adding in the dummy variables:
P2
REM C,t = αEM C + βEM C RT I,t + k=−2 ci,t+k Di,k + EM C,t

Thus, the abnormal returns of EMC are in this method calculated as the
difference of EMC’s daily returns during event windows after adjusting for the dail
returns of the Technology Index during this period.

11 Discussion and Results

11.1 Mean Adjusted Returns Model

Using the simple average of EMC’s daily percentage returns over the event
period returns the following results:

1 P263 ¯ C = 0.0005
REM C,t = REM
263 n=1

Subtracting this mean return from each daily return provides residual values.
Table 4 shows the summary statistics for each type of event. This model provided
positive average residual values for each event grouping, as well as each time compo-
nent. There were some negative median values for the anti-merger events as well as
in the ”All Events” category. However, the majority of the standard errors on the ta-
ble exceed the values of the mean residual returns, thus showing largely insignificant
results.

32
 Table 4: Mean-Adjusted Residuals

1-day 3-day 5-day

Pro-merger Mean 0.011 0.007 0.006
Median 0.005 0.003 0.002
SD 0.022 0.018 0.017
Anti-merger Mean 0.003 0.002 0.003
Median -0.002 -0.002 0.000
SD 0.026 0.021 0.017
Neutral Mean 0.016 0.012 0.008
Median 0.007 0.007 0.006
SD 0.022 0.021 0.018
All Events Mean 0.005 0.002 0.001
Median -0.001 -0.001 -0.001
SD 0.037 0.028 0.025

11.2 Market Adjusted Returns Model

Table 5: Market-Adjusted Residuals

1-day 3-day 5-day

Pro-merger Mean 0.011 0.006 0.004
Median 0.005 0.003 0.001
SD 0.022 0.018 0.016
Anti-merger Mean 0.001 0.003 0.002
Median -0.001 -0.001 0.001
SD 0.025 0.021 0.018
Neutral Mean 0.014 0.012 0.006
Median 0.007 0.008 0.006
SD 0.020 0.020 0.019
All Events Mean 0.008 0.005 0.003
Median 0.003 0.002 0.001
SD 0.022 0.018 0.016

The market adjusted model provides slightly different return values than that
of the mean-adjusted model. However, the differences are relatively minor. Using
the Technology Index also provided entirely positive average residual values, as well
as negative medians in the ”Anti-merger” category. Again, the standard errors are
rather high and thus not much can be extracted from the residual values.

33
11.3 The Multivariate Regression Model

Table 6: MVRM-Adjusted Residuals

1-day 3-day 5-day

Pro-merger Mean 0.008 0.007 0.006
Median 0.005 0.004 0.004
SD 0.015 0.015 0.015
Anti-merger Mean 0.013 0.004 0.005
Median 0.003 0.003 0.002
SD 0.023 0.021 0.019
Neutral Mean 0.021 0.013 0.011
Median 0.017 0.010 0.005
SD 0.020 0.020 0.019
All Events Mean 0.010 0.006 0.005
Median 0.005 0.005 0.004
SD 0.019 0.017 0.016

Using the returns from the multivariate regression model to calculate the resid-
uals resulted in positive values across the board. The standard errors are again mostly
larger in magnitude than the small average residual values for each type of event.

11.4 Summary and Comparison

In looking at the summary statistics of the three methods for determining

residual returns, there are some minor differences in reported values. However, the
magnitudes of the mean and median values are largely overpowered by the high
standard errors, and the differences can be deemed insignificant. In the next section
these models are taken a step further and abnormal returns are found.

12 Determining Abnormal Returns

If it is assumed that the stock market is efficient, then realized returns cannot
systematically differ from expected returns. However, increased (or decreased) ab-

34
normal returns can sometimes occur surrounding unexpected events or shocks to the
market; to determine if these returns are significant in percentage to be classified as
abnormal, hypothesis testing can be used. The null hypothesis for this test is that no
abnormal return exists. This process can be applied to each category of events and
is set up as the following:

Ho : AEM C,t = 0
HA : AEM C,t 6= 0

Using a standard t-test12 , the t-statistic is calculated as:

P
AEM C,t

t= N
√
σ/ N

This t-statistic is used to determine the significance of the abnormal returns

within each of the three methods. These results are evaluated by event type in the
next sections.

12.1 Pro-Merger

Table 7 reports the results of each model. For the 3-day and 5-day windows,
the values of abnormal returns reported represent returns for the entire window. The
pro-merger means for each method and for the three different window measurements
are all positive and significant, showing that EMC shareholders reacted positively to
pro-merger announcements. The mean-adjusted model reports the highest averaged
abnormal return at 0.68%, followed by the multivariate regression model at 0.61%
and then the market-adjusted model at 0.54%. The difference in values also seem to
grow as the window measures moves from [0] to [-2,2], showing a larger variance as
the window is expanded.
12
With the t-test certain assumptions about the data must be made. These are: the dependent
variable is continuous, approximately normally distributed and without outliers. The observations
are also independent of one another.

35
 Table 7: Pro-Merger Comparison (n = 18)

Mean-Adjusted Market-Adjusted MVRM

Average Mean AR 0.0068*** 0.0054** 0.0061***
t-statistic 2.79 2.01 2.70
1-Day Mean AR 0.0073** 0.0077** 0.0075**
t-statistic 2.19 2.25 2.47
3-Day Mean AR 0.0067*** 0.0047* 0.0058***
t-statistic 2.95 1.95 2.77
5-Day Mean AR 0.0063*** 0.0037* 0.0051***
t-statistic 3.22 1.82 2.86
Note: * indicates statistical significance at the 90% level, ** indicates statistical
significance at the 95% level and *** indicates statistical significance at the 99%
level.

12.2 Anti-Merger

For the anti-merger events, there are no significant differences between the
mean values of the three methods, as none are found to be statistically significant

36
 Table 8: Anti-Merger Event Comparison (n = 10)

Mean-Adjusted Market-Adjusted MVRM

Average Mean AR 0.0024 0.0020 0.0022
t-statistic 0.76 0.68 0.81
1-Day Mean AR 0.0027 0.0006 0.0017
t-statistic 0.59 0.13 0.42
3-Day Mean AR 0.0017 0.0031 0.0024
t-statistic 0.56 0.99 0.85
5-Day Mean AR 0.0029 0.0024 0.0026
t-statistic 1.14 0.91 1.15

37
from zero. The coefficients do not vary much, with the largest difference in average
mean abnormal return being only 0.02%. When looking at how this type of event
effected the returns, it is notable that the mean values of returns in response to the
anti-merger events are on average much lower than the pro-merger values. Although
all of the anti-merger returns are positive, none are found to be significant at any level,
and the null hypothesis of no abnormal return cannot be rejected. Additionally, each
of the mean returns on the table are lower than their respective pro-merger values.
Thus, although there is not a significant fall in stock price at the release of these anti-
merger events, there is not the same small positive return as seen with the pro-merger
events.

12.3 Neutral

Table 9: Neutral Event Comparison (n = 9)

Mean-Adjusted Market-Adjusted MVRM

Average Mean AR 0.0124*** 0.0110*** 0.0118***
t-statistic 3.17 2.68 3.28
1-Day Mean AR 0.0161*** 0.0142** 0.0152***
t-statistic 2.86 2.43 2.97
3-Day Mean AR 0.0123*** 0.0123*** 0.0123***
t-statistic 3.50 3.39 3.86
5-Day Mean AR 0.0089*** 0.0065** 0.0078***
t-statistic 3.14 2.21 3.02

Of the neutral events tracked, there is again only minor variations in the mean
abnormal return values. All of the values reported by each method are positive and
strongly statistically significant. Somewhat surprisingly, the ”Neutral Events” cate-
gory reported the highest magnitudes of any of the event categories with magnitudes
as high as 1.61% and 1.52% reported on the announcement days.

38
12.4 Summary and Comparison

The mean-adjusted method, market-adjusted method and multivariate regres-

sion model method provide three different ways for determining abnormal returns
in an event study. In looking at EMC’s stock price data during this time, the three
methods find significant results of similar magnitude in each category presented. This
data thus supports the finding that using any of these methods to determine abnormal
returns will yield similar results. This supports the findings of Brown and Warner
that the methods are interchangeable [7]. However, economic theory and many other
papers overwhelmingly support the use of the third method, the MVRM.
In looking at EMC’s responses to the four categories, there is evidence that
EMC shareholders reacted: positively to pro-merger events (as shown by the positive
and significant abnormal returns for each category in response to pro-merger events),
more negatively to the anti-merger events than the pro-merger events (as shown by the
lower magnitudes of the coefficients and the fact that there were no significant positive
returns in response to anti-merger events), and positively to neutral events (as shown
by the significant positive values of high magnitude in response to neutral events).
Although there is not an intuitive reasoning for the positive reaction to the neutral
events grouping, the shareholders responses to the other categories demonstrate some
degree of confidence that the merger’s success will lead to a final buy-out share price
that they would be happy with, as well as a desire for the merger to be successfully
completed. The next section evaluates if shareholders of competitor stock believed a
beneficial merger to EMC would increase efficiency in the market or harm competitors
and consumers. For the competitor analysis, the multivariate regression model is
employed as the method used to determine abnormal returns.

39
13 Competitor Testing

Figure 5: Entry Level and Midrange Storage Market

One reason for the use of event studies in tracking mergers is to make a reliable
inference as to the efficiency of a merger. This can be done by studying how the market
views the merger. A merger that causes a change in efficiency for the two firms will
ultimately impact the profits of the competing firms in the industry. With a major
industry merger, there is an antitrust concern that a new firm will have monopolistic
power and be able to raise prices and restrict output, making demand more inelastic.
If competitors believed this to be the case they would be in favor of the merger.
Thus, positive competitor returns in response to events that indicate the merger will
succeed (pro-merger) can indicate a concern of monopoly and an inefficient merger.
Negative competitor returns in response to pro-merger events can indicate an efficient
merger. The opposite returns are to be expected in response to anti-merger events.
with negative competitor returns indicating possible inefficiencies.
Thus, tracking the stock prices of these competitors alongside pro-merger

40
events that imply successful completion of the merger–as well as negative, merger-
deterring events–reveals if the competing firms believe the merger will be efficient or
not.
To use this method, competitors of the company in question must be deter-
mined. Figure 5 presents the market shares of companies in the entry and midrange
storage markets13 . The graphic shows data from mid 2015 to early 2016, representing
market shares immediately prior to the merger. At this time, EMC had the largest
market share of 20.7%, followed in second by NetApp with 14.4%, Hewlett Packard
Enterprise with 12.5%, IBM with 8.9%, Dell with 8.7%, Hitachi with 3.2% and so on.
Thus, the competitors chosen for analysis are NetApp, HP, IBM and Hitachi. Also
included in the stock price tracking is VMWare–due to it’s intertwined involvement
in the merger it is useful to track this stock as well.

13.1 Pro-Merger Events

Table 10: Pro-Merger Events (n = 18)

EMC VMWare HP IBM NetApp Hitachi

Average Mean AR 0.0065*** 0.0077* 0.0076 0.0004 0.0046 0.0107***
t-statistic 2.88 1.74 1.01 0.23 0.88 2.60
1-Day Mean AR 0.0075** 0.0135** 0.0100 0.0000 0.0027 0.0168***
t-statistic 2.47 2.55 1.01 0.02 0.51 3.28
3-Day Mean AR 0.0069 0.0062* 0.0066 0.0001 0.0030 0.0094**
t-statistic 3.32 1.70 0.94 0.04 0.81 2.57
5-Day Mean AR 0.0051*** 0.0031 0.0063 0.0012 0.0081 0.0060*
t-statistic 2.86 0.98 1.07 0.64 1.32 1.95

As previously discussed, in response to the pro-merger events, EMC saw pos-

itive and significant abnormal returns. Similarly, VMWare saw small but significant
13
In this instance entry and midrange storage is defined as any data storage systems valued from
$0K to $250K.

41
positive returns for all of the measures except the 5-day window. These positive
returns show support for the merger’s success.
For the competitors, there were also entirely positive returns in response to
the pro-merger announcements. Hitachi saw the most significant positive returns,
with magnitudes larger than EMC’s. HP, NetApp and IBM all saw no significant
abnormal returns. If these companies were fearful of monopolistic power, negative
returns would be seen here. These positive returns seen by competitors may indicate
an expectation of monopoly. However, given the low significance levels, there is likely
more at play. One possibility is the ”takeover premium” contagion, the idea that a
merger bringing up share prices of EMC will spillover onto competing firms and raise
their share prices. This can also be attributed to positive sectoral effects–the idea
that companies in the same market tend to fluctuate together in market trading. A
final possible explanation for this is the problem of pure play; given the large size of
each of these competitors, it is possible the positive returns seen are a result of an
occurence unrelated to the Dell-EMC merger.

13.2 Anti-Merger Events

Table 11: Anti-Merger Events(n = 10)

EMC VMWare HP IBM NetApp Hitachi

Average Mean AR 0.0023 -0.0065 0.0042 0.0003 0.0034 0.0052
t-statistic 0.81 -1.16 0.39 0.05 0.59 0.07
1-Day Mean AR 0.0017 -0.0090 0.0055 0.0012 0.0057 0.0000
t-statistic 0.42 -1.21 0.40 0.29 0.78 0.01
3-Day Mean AR 0.0024 -0.0063 0.0073 0.0001 0.0031 -0.0023
t-statistic 0.85 -1.25 0.78 0.02 0.62 -0.48
5-Day Mean AR 0.0026 -0.0043 -0.0002 -0.0004 0.0015 0.0001
t-statistic 1.15 -1.03 -0.02 -0.15 0.36 0.02

When tracking the anti-merger events, there were no abnormal returns of sta-

42
tistical significance found for any of the companies tracked. Differing from the pro-
merger events, negative mean return values were reported by VMWare, HP and IBM
using the 5-day window, and Hitachi using the 3-day window. It is interesting that
EMC does not see negative abnormal returns in response to the anti-merger events.
One possible explanation for this is an aggregation issue. Combining all of the events
classified as anti-merger mitigates some of the negative reactions. An additional ex-
planation is that the Dell-EMC merger was not very controversial. In this sense, there
were few events that were truly merger-deterring or strongly indicative of a decreased
probability of the merger being successful.

13.3 Neutral Events

Table 12: Neutral Events (n = 9)

EMC VMWare HP IBM NetApp Hitachi

Average Mean AR 0.0118*** 0.0016 0.0093 0.0014 0.0077 0.0052
t-statistic 3.42 0.07 0.75 0.61 0.76 1.00
1-Day Mean AR 0.0152*** -0.0010 0.0129 0.0033 0.0137 0.0017
t-statistic 2.97 -0.11 0.74 0.60 1.52 0.18
3-Day Mean AR 0.0123*** 0.0015 0.0082 0.0021 0.0033 0.0055
t-statistic 3.86 0.25 0.76 0.62 0.57 0.96
5-Day Mean AR 0.0078*** 0.0043 0.0067 -0.0012 0.0061 0.0085*
t-statistic 3.02 -0.76 0.77 -0.44 0.18 1.86

In response to the neutral events, EMC again saw highly significant negative
abnormal returns with each day amount. At the same time, VMWare did not see
any significant returns, and showed some positive and some negative values. Hitachi
saw significant negative returns 1-day after the events. IBM, NetApp and HP did
not demonstrate any returns of significance. It is difficult to interpret the significant
results of the neutral events, given their unclear predicted impact on the merger. It is
possible certain shareholders interpreted these ambiguous events in either a positive

43
or negative light and reacted accordingly; it is also possible the pure play concern is at
work here with a non-merger related event impacted the returns of these companies
and are skewing the results in response to seemingly neutral events.

13.4 Competitive Conclusions

Overall, the tracking of competitor share price movements provides some ev-
idence to argue for the efficiency of the Dell-EMC merger. In looking at the ab-
normal returns of EMC, the results are indicative that shareholders supported the
merger–evidence only that they predicted a satisfactory share price at the time of
the merger. This information also helps to define relevant events and event win-
dows. VMWare showed some abnormal returns which followed the same pattern as
the EMC returns. However, given VMWare was not to be made private at the close
of the deal, the shareholder reaction here demonstrate some evidence for predicted
post-merger efficiency. The positive reaction to pro-merger events and negative reac-
tion to anti-merger events make an argument that shareholders of VMWare believed
they would benefit financially from the merger. Meanwhile, tracking the competitor
reactions in response to the different categories showed limited abnormal response to
merger-related announcements. There were some positive returns associated with the
pro-merger categories, however due to the lack of very many of significance, these can
be explained away as earlier stated as a result of the ”takeover premium” contagion
or positive sectoral effects causing an influx in stock prices in the market. Addition-
ally, the pure play factor is likely at play, with other occurrences unrelated to the
merger affecting these companies. When looking at the anti-merger events, EMC
does not see negative returns as expected. This is likely a result of aggregating the
anti-merger events and including some with minimal impact on returns. In addition,

44
the lack of controversy that surrounded the merger likely prevented any significant
negative returns from occurring in response to the anti-merger events.

13.5 Addressing Hitachi’s Returns

In looking at competitor returns the company that stands out as the main
outlier is Hitachi. Hitachi was found to have highly significant, positive abnormal
returns in response to the pro-merger events studied. However, given Hitachi only
had a 4.4% market share in the mid-range storage market, it seems unlikely they
anticipated being so heavily impacted by a non-controversial merger. In addition, it
is found that Hitachi’s entire Information and Telecommunication System segment
makes up less than a fifth of their overall revenues. Within this segment is storage,
along with 7 other products considered to be ”main products” of this segment, ac-
cording to Hitachi’s website. In addition, though there were no obvious other events
at play for Hitachi during the event period to be used as an alternative explanation,
of the 10-20 announcements mentioned on Hitachi’s site per month, none were in
regards to the storage market during this time. Thus, it is much more likely that Hi-
tachi’s abnormal returns were in response to something other than EMC’s pro-merger
events.

14 Potential Concerns

14.1 Reliability of Data

In this study daily stock return information is used. Though using this type
of data has still proven accurate in analysis, it is less reliable and tends to fluctuate
much more than monthly or annual data. There are thus several potential concerns

45
with the use of daily data. In addition to the high variance in daily data, one of
the major assumptions that must be made to rely on this type of analysis is that
information is released at the time of the event, and not prior to it. There is some
concern at the possibility of leakage of information prior to the announcement of the
event when it is published by the Wall Street Journal. This could lessen the abnormal
returns caused by the WSJ announcements as some of the change in stock price could
have occurred along with the previously leaked information.

14.2 Non-Normality

In general, daily returns are much less normal than monthly. When compared
to a normal distribution, they tend to be fatter-tailed with more variance. Figure 6, a
normality plot of 1-day EMC returns during the event period, shows that the data is
not very normal. The graph shows an inverted S-shape, beginning below the normal
line, bending over it and then finishing back above. This indicates that the return
data has more variance and longer tails than in a normal distribution.
Figure 7 plots the same data over the event period, but the returns are cal-
culated monthly. This graph still exhibits a bit of an S-shape, but it is more normal
than the daily data.

14.3 Overlapping Data

Because of the relatively small event period used in this study and the high
frequency of announcements related to the merger, there is significant overlap between
many of the 1, 3, and 5, day periods following different events. For instance, between
10/7/15 and 10/13/15 there are 9 different merger-related announcements, including
all three types of events. As it is incredibly difficult to discern what impact in the

46
 Figure 6: Daily Normality Plot
This probability plot asseses whether or not the data set is normally distributed by
plotting the data against a theoretical normal distribution to see if the points form a
straight line. The y-axis shows normal probability percentage and the x-axis shows
the empirical P(i)=i/(N+1). Daily stock price data is used from finance.yahoo.com.

stock price is due to which event, this is likely to skew results. One problem with this
paper is that it does not address these concerns or explore the possibility of throwing
out overlapping events.

14.4 Lack of Pure Play

The biggest concern with tracking the returns of competitors is the lack of a
pure play. The competitive companies tracked are all large corporations that compete
in numerous product markets. For these reasons, assuming that changes in their stock

47
 Figure 7: Monthly Normality Plot
This probability plot asseses whether or not the data set is normally distributed
by plotting the data against a theoretical normal distribution to see if the points
form a straight line. The y-axis shows normal probability percentage and the x-
axis shows the empirical P(i)=i/(N+1). Monthly stock price data is used from fi-
nance.yahoo.com.

prices surrounding merger announcements are a direct reaction to these events may
not be accurate. There are likely other events, not related to the merger, that could
be impacting the abnormal returns–as is expected with Hitachi.

14.5 Aggregation

In this paper events are categorized into three categories: pro-merger, anti-
merger and neutral. Data from each event classified is then aggregated within that
group to create three different dummy variables. This aggregation caused some issues

48
and likely diminished the magnitude and significance of results. It would be better
in the future to separate out the most important pro-merger and anti-merger events
and determine based on the share price reaction of EMC to the announcement. From
there, competitor returns could be tracked and results would be less muddled.

14.6 Complementary Firms

Another issue in this paper is the lack of analysis performed on complementary

firms. Looking at complements can help eliminate the pure play problem, providing
stronger abnormal returns and results. Due to the vast size of Dell and EMC, finding
complementary firms is difficult. However, doing so would be very beneficial to future
research.

14.7 Non-Controversial Nature of Merger

Another concern of this merger is that it was not heavily challenged or largely
controversial. This resulted in limited anti-merger events, and prevented those iden-
tified from having a strong impact on abnormal returns. This made tracking com-
petitors accurately difficult, as it was not possible to define anto-merger events based
on negative share price reaction from EMC.

15 Conclusion

15.1 Summary

The grandeur of the Dell-EMC merger makes it an interesting, though some-

what difficult, merger to analyze. As the largest merger in technology history, it
involved many different smaller companies attached to EMC and a complex method

49
of financing. Due to Dell being private, the stock market analysis had to be primarily
focused on only one of the involved companies, not necessarily standard for this type
of analysis. In addition, the merger is likely to have at least some impact on numerous
different product markets, and so one had to be chosen for analysis.
One of the main objectives of this paper was to use several different methods
to determine abnormal returns of EMC in response to merger-related announcements
during the event period and evaluate if they differ. After completing the analysis
with the mean-adjusted method, the market-adjusted method, and the multivariate
regression model approach, it was concluded that there are some discrepancies that
appear in the results of the three methods, but that these differences are largely
insignificant. In this paper specifically, the type of method had minimal impact on the
results, as none of the methods produced statistically significant abnormal returns in
categories that the other two methods did not. In addition, the numerical differences
in the return values were very small, maxing out at about 1%. These conclusions
support those of previous papers that the methods can be used interchangeably in
event studies. However, the MVRM is overwhelmingly supported by the literature as
the preferred method.
The other main objective for this paper was to determine post-merger mar-
ket efficiency based on competitors in the mid-range storage market. This market
specifically was chosen due to the overlap and horizontal nature of the merger in this
category–as it was the only market in which Dell and EMC were true competitors prior
to the merger. Although not a competitor, VMWare’s abnormal returns indicated a
desire for the merger to be successful, with positive reactions to pro-merger events
and negative reactions to anti-merger events. On the other hand, the results showed
that on the whole, competitors did not believe the merger would result in monopo-
listic power for Dell-EMC or be significantly harmful within the mid-range storage

50
market, as there was little reflection of a strong reaction in their share prices. The
stock reactions also showed on average some support for pro-merger announcements
and less support for anti-merger announcements. In general, these results indicate
only that the competing firms were not fearful or strongly opposed to the merger.
In order to determine the exact efficiency improvements seen by Dell and EMC, it is
recommended that further analysis be done.

15.2 Suggestions for Future Research

One of the major issues with tracking the events during the event period
alongside EMC’s stocks was that both pro-merger and anti-merger announcements
were often announced within a couple days of each other. For future research,it would
be beneficial to look at a merger with fewer (or zero) overlapping events. If this is not
possible, it would be interesting to determine a method for better determining the
specific impact of each event by subtracting out the impact of the other overlapping
event. This could possibly be done by developing a model for each type of event and
using it to determine how much of each return is a result of which type of event.
Next, examining post-merger market performance would be very useful. Track-
ing the new company’s performance after the fact and analyzing if retail prices in-
creased in the storage market or if there was output restriction would provide a
definitive answer to the merger efficiency question.
Additionally, using the merger of two publicly listed companies would allow for
further and simpler analysis that can look at the returns of both companies involved in
the merger, rather than just one. This would also allow for stronger interpretations of
the share price reactions of the companies involved, as they may indicate shareholder
predictions about post-merger efficiency.

51
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