Mergers and Acquisitions: A Consolidation Strategy andAnalysis of its Impact on Nasdaq-100 Technology IndexDuring 2009 To 2019

Technology being an ever-evolving industry, challenges its top players to keep up with their market share, making Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) a prominent consolidation strategy. This study addresses peer reviews and literatures done on this trend over the past few years and the aim of the research is to analyse the impact of this consolidation strategy on the Nasdaq-100 Index over the span of 10 years. Methodology includes the case studies on top 10 technology companies of the index (i.e. those companies which are classified into technology sector on Nasdaq-100 index) which includes Apple Inc., Adobe Inc., Autodesk Inc., Ansys Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation, Citrix Systems Inc., Alphabet Inc Class A, Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq, Inc, 2020). The data is sourced from Nasdaq-100 website for stock price as well index change, S&P capital IQ database for M&A data and company press releases for synergy effect. For the research analysis, each company is profiled to highlight their detailed business description, ten-year analysis through daily stock price and daily stock return charts, and table of selected merger and acquisitions. The table of selected merger and acquisition highlights the market reaction on the day of announcement as well as on the next day of the announcement along with M&A statistics. Further, the benchmark index i.e. Nasdaq-100 is also profiled by including its description, ten-year analysis through daily index value and daily index return charts. Also, index profiling chart also highlights the consolidated daily stock price chart of selected ten companies along with overall M&A statistics of market reaction. Multiple regression analysis is used to understand and compare each stock movement (x or independent variable) with the benchmark index (y or dependant variable). Finally, empirical study is conducted for each M&A by researching the reasons and how that reasons affects the market reaction, both on stock prices as well as index value. This study contributes to the empirical gap related to how M&A as a consolidation strategy in technology industry has affected one of the major stock indices in the US through the study of impact of each M&A on share prices of each stock and index as total, during the period of 2009 to 2019. Keywords: Merger and Acquisition; Technology industry; consolidation strategy; Nasdaq-100; synergy effect;