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| Greening Financial Assessment and Green Acquisitions of Polluting Companies: Research from the Perspective of the Signaling Effect |
| CHEN Haiqiang, HU Xiaoxue, LI Dongxu
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| The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics, Xiamen University;
The School of Economics, Xiamen University |
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Abstract The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China advocates expediting the shift toward an increasingly green development mode, with green finance being a pivotal tool in attaining this objective. In 2017, the People's Bank of China integrated green credit into its macroprudential assessment (MPA) system, aiming to incentivize banks to support enterprises undergoing a green transition and upgrading through “greening” financial assessments. In this paper, we use this policy to establish a quasi-natural experiment. We use the intensity difference-in-differences model and a sample of pollution-intensive industry firms listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) from 2013 to 2020 to examine the impact of integrating green credit into the MPA system on firms' green merger and acquisition (M&A) behavior, as well as the underlying mechanism.
Our results are reflected in the following four main aspects. First, the integration of green credit into the MPA escalates the propensity of pollution-intensive industry firms to pursue green M&As. Specifically, each one-standard-deviation increase in industry pollution density is associated with a 22.77% increase in the likelihood that firms will engage in green M&A. Second, the impact of the green prudential regulatory policy on green M&As primarily incentivizes firms with undervalued stock prices and robust fundamentals. Firms' green M&A announcements elicit positive stock market reactions, indicating that firms seize the opportunity to signal their commitment to and capacity for green transition to the capital market, thereby rectifying stock price undervaluation. Third, the effects of green prudential regulatory policies on green M&A are stronger for larger firms and those with fewer financial constraints. This finding implies that firms may engage in green M&As not to alleviate financing limitations, but rather to signal their positive green intentions, thereby bolstering their market performance and curbing capital costs. Finally, over the long term, firms involved in green M&As witness a substantial uptick in profitability and green innovations, underscoring the positive role of greening financial assessment. These effects facilitate firms' achievement of a green transition, ultimately amplifying firms' value and contributing to sustainable development goals.
This paper contributes to the literature in the following ways. First, we contribute new evidence to the literature on the signaling effect of M&As. The literature finds that, unlike other markets, valuation repair is the primary motivation for signal-based M&As in the Chinese market. In this paper, we further explore the impact of policy traction effects on firms' signal-based M&A behavior. Second, this paper contributes a new analytical perspective to the literature on green finance and firms' green practices. The literature mainly focuses on the influence of green finance monetary policy on firms' investment, financing, and green innovation. Our study provides a major contrast by mainly exploring the impact of green macro-prudential regulatory policy on firms' investment decisions from the perspectives of green finance assessment and signaling effects. Third, we marginally contribute to understanding of the synergistic effect of M&As on green innovation. The literature mainly assumes that firms achieve green development through internal innovation. However, our paper points out that through green M&As, firms may directly obtain green technology from external sources and may complement their advantages with target companies during the M&A integration process, ultimately achieving a rapid transition and upgrade. Our paper also provides a new analytical perspective on how to use greening financial assessment to guide green development in the real economy, and it provides empirical evidence to guide high-quality development using green macro-prudential regulatory policies.
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Received: 02 October 2023
Published: 17 July 2024
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