I study the effects of overvalued equity on acquisition activity and shareholder wealth, using managers' insider trades to measure overvaluation. I find that overvalued equity drives managers to make stock acquisitions, and such acquisitions destroy value for acquirer shareholders. Overvalued stock acquirers earn negative and lower returns in the short run and substantially underperform similarly overvalued nonacquirer firms in the long run. My results do not support the idea that managers can benefit shareholders by converting overvalued equity into real assets through stock acquisitions.

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This paper studies announcement returns from 4,764 mergers over 57 years to shed light on several controversies concerning corporate diversification. One prominent view is that diversification destroys value because of agency problems or internal investment distortions, but we find that combined (acquirer plus target) announcement returns are significantly positive for diversifying mergers throughout the period, and no lower than the returns for related mergers. The returns from diversifying acquisitions fell after 1980, and investors rewarded mergers involving financially constrained firms before but not after 1980, consistent with the idea that the value of internal capital markets declined over time.

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