Earnouts as Payment Currency and Value Gains to Bidder Shareholders.

The dissertation investigates the cumulative abnormal return (CAR) for Swedish and German bidders in mergers and acquisitions, focusing on the impact of payment methods, including cash, stock, and earnouts. Analyzing 927 transactions from 1986 to 2012, it finds that earnout deals, particularly those with smaller relative earnout values and shorter earnout lengths, tend to outperform others. The study also concludes that using earnouts can mitigate valuation risk and enhance value gains for shareholders, supporting the hypothesis that cash combined with earnouts is a superior financing method.