Post-IPO banks are far more likely to initiate dividends than nonfinancial IPO firms. Moreover, dividend initiation has a significant impact on the ultimate disposition of a newly public bank, increasing its likelihood of subsequent acquisition by around 40% and reducing the expected time until...

This paper examines operating performance around commercial bank mergers. We find that industry-adjusted operating performance of merged banks increases significantly after the merger, large bank mergers produce greater performance gains than small bank mergers, activity focusing mergers produce...