Marcin Puziak

Poznan University of Economics

marcin.puziak@ue.poznan.pl

Maciej Martyniuk

Warsaw School of Economisc

maciejmart@wp.pl

Abstract: Since the 1970s and 1980s mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have been a regular part of the American capital market. As the American capital market is considered to be the most developed one in the world, processes that take place there started to occur at other markets, including the Polish market. One of the most interesting aspect of M&A is the issue of hostile takeover, which is a situation when the takeover occurs against the will of existing company’s board of directors and its current shareholders. The aim of this article is to present the possible strategies, which can be used by resisting companies against hostile takeovers, and the assessment of their influence on a company in the context its restructurisation. In the part devoted to the analysis of cases, description of three processes of hostile takeovers is presented. Each of these took place at a different market and, which is the most important feature, each of these ended with different result. The discussed cases encompass the unsuccessful takeover of Gillette company at the American market, the attempt at takeover of Thyssen by Krupp-Hoesch, which resulted in a merger, and the history of the hostile takeover of Kruk company by Vistula. The below analysis enabled to assess the defensive strategies in the context of restructuring results, which occur in the situation of hostile takeovers.

Keywords: restructurisation, hostile takeovers, case studies.

JEL Classification: G 34.