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Mergers and Acquisitions (MA)
have been of serious concern in financial markets all over
the world. The topic is about the desire of firms to acquire
others, or join forces together. Some of these transactions
have been successful; others unfortunately less so. The
rationale for the current study is to investigate the impact
of MA on performance of Ghana’s banking industry, with
emphasis on Societe Generale Bank Ltd. The main data for our
study consist of official documents of the bank and the Bank
of Ghana like their annual reports and other financial
information of several years. These are supplemented by
discussions with selected senior officials of the bank.
Adopting the Financial Performance (FP) Approach, analysis
of data using Microsoft excel package was done. Important
findings include: Societe Generale appears to have chalked
some modest positive financial performance. Secondly, the
results appear to suggest lack of any evidence of costs
reduction and operational efficiency. But the study notes
that success of the merged company depends on probability of
occurrence of staff hostility; insufficient preparation for
the evolution; inability to integrate personnel and systems;
and irreconcilable differences in corporate cultures and
management, all of which must be effectively handled to
maximize success of MA activities in the banking industry.
Keywords: mergers and acquisitions, costs reduction,
operational efficiency, financial performance, structure-
conduct- performance (SCP) paradigm, efficiency hypothesis
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